


the water and the rock

by HildyJ



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Case Fic, Christmas, Cynical Hank, Discussions about Blood, Falling In Love, First Meetings, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Romance, Secrets, Strangers to Lovers, Unhappy Connor, Unhappy marriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2019-10-13 08:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17484941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HildyJ/pseuds/HildyJ
Summary: When Hank Anderson visits Elijah Kamski's house in the course of his investigation into a new exploitive business called Ichor Inc, he didn't count on also runnning into Kamski's trophy husband, Connor.Hank is ready to write him off as pampered and pointless, but every time he meets Connor after that, another crack is created in the walls Hank has built around himself to keep other people away.





	1. The DPD comes calling

Hank shut off the engine to his car and leaned back with a sigh. On the seat next to him sat the file on this Kamski fuck. He had flicked through it earlier, Fowler’s voice still ringing in his ears, and he had quickly gotten a good idea of who this guy was: self-made billionaire, one of these dead-eyed tech bros, living off nutritional shakes and the blood of desperate college students. Hank could remember when these sorts of guys rose to prominence in the early 2000s, people who were going to “break the paradigm” or some bullshit like that. They all turned out to be the same old labour-crushing capitalist, hell-bent on hoarding more money than they could ever spend in a hundred lifetimes, only this time they offered you a choice of vape flavours rather than a cigar when you visited their office. Kamski was just the newest model in a long line of rich assholes.

Hank sighed again, watching his breath crystallize in front of him. It was getting too cold to be sitting outside like this but he really didn’t want to go inside. He didn’t like dealing with people like Kamski, people who felt they had nothing to lose and nothing to gain from talking to the police. They have no incentive to cooperate, because lowly lieutenants like Hank usually have nothing to give them in return for information. The kind of security and information-gathering Kamski’s money can buy, beats anything the underfunded DPD can offer up.

The snow crunched under his shoes as he closed the car door behind him and looked up at the house in front of him. Grimly modern, grey and square. It looked more like a warehouse than a home to Hank’s eyes, but maybe it needed to be this big to house an ego of Kamski’s reported size.

Hank rang the bell.

A young blonde woman answered the door, a round, girlish face smiling politely up at him. “Yes?”

He held up his ID with a practised flick of the wrist. “Lieutenant Hank Anderson, Detroit Police. Is Elijah Kamski available to talk?”

A small frown dimpled her brow for a half a second, but she quickly wiped it away and retreated back into that placid smile. She took a step back, inviting Hank inside the hall. “Please wait here.” And then she was gone, a whisper of a soft step carrying her off somewhere into the house.

Hank barely had time to roll his eyes at the massive painting of Kamski greeting his guests before she was back again, gesturing for him to follow her into what looked like an office.

“So, what did I do to have the pleasure of Detroit Police visiting me at my own house?”

The words were meant to be disarmingly funny, Hank was sure of it, but the tone of Elijah Kamski’s voice immediately rubbed him the wrong way. It was low and soft but far from pleasant. Every word seemed tinged with an edge of arrogant sarcasm, like Kamski was used to always being the smartest person in the room, and to be fair: he probably was.

Kamski was sitting behind a steel-framed desk with a thin screen was angled towards him, but not much else crowded his space. His hair was wound up in a samurai knot and he wore a loose fitted jacket, more like belted robe than anything else. His eyes kept flitting from Hank to the screen, giving them equal parts of his bored attention.

Hank glanced at the vacant chair three feet in front of him, waiting to be invited to sit down, but when that didn’t happen, he squared his shoulders and began his questioning. No need for courtesies, then.

“Mr. Kamski, are you aware of a company called Ichor Inc?”

Kamski’s eyes, which had been tracking across the screen, stopped in their movement. His whole face was unnaturally still for the smallest of moments before turning fully towards where Hank was standing. “I’m sure everyone in Detroit has heard of Ichor by now.” He smirked superciliously. “It’s been all over the news this past week, hasn’t it?”

“And do you know the owner –“ Hank checked his notes, “Zlatko Andronikov?”

“I know a lot of people, Lieutenant.” Kamski sat back in his chair, having regained his earlier confidence completely. “It’s part of my job to mingle with the right sort of people. It’s good for business, you know.”

“And would you call an organ trader _the right sort of people_?” Hank shot back with more heat in his voice than he would like to reveal in front of a cold man like Kamski.

Kamski pursed his lips. “Is blood an organ? I think you’ve got your terminology mixed up, Lieutenant.”

Hank narrowed his eyes. “When it’s bought from the desperate and sold to people like—“ Hank interrupted himself with a grimace. “And sold to the highest bidder rather than given to someone who’s in need, that’s what I would call an organ trade.”

Kamski gave him a cold look. “And you’re not alone in that opinion, I’m sure, given the general hysteric outrage that the media’s been feeding this last week,” he finished with a shrug, his eyes floating back to the screen.

And there it was, Hank thought, the brush-off. What common, ordinary people like Hank thought to be plain, inescapable morals and common decency just didn’t apply to someone like Kamski. Any sense of ethics was only a hindrance when you could buy whatever or whoever you wanted and what Ichor Inc. was selling was blood – young blood drained from the poor and bought by the super-rich to transfuse into their own bodies in some sort of vain attempt at immortality. It was supposed to feed the organs and cells, making them young in return. That was the idea that Zlatko Andronikov was selling – alongside with pints of blood.

Hank persisted even though Kamski had all but dismissed him. “Can you tell me where you were on the evening of November the fifth?”

“ _Remember, remember the fifth of November…_ ,” Kamski murmured under his breath. “I was at home, Lieutenant. Reading a book.”

“Can anyone confirm this?”

“Yes,” Kamski said without hesitation, “My husband was with me all night.”

“And you never left the house that night?”

“It was a terribly thrilling book, Lieutenant. I couldn’t tear myself away.”

“That’s odd,” Hank said, “because I have two witnesses who swear they saw you at one of Zlatko Andronikov’s… _presentations_ in one of the back rooms of Europa Club and that you paid for a sample of his services.”

“Yes, Lieutenant, that sounds very odd. Maybe if you gave me the names of these…witnesses, it might jog my memory?”

Hank ignored him. “Organ trading is still illegal in the state of Michigan, Mr. Kamski,” he continued, “even though Andronikov and his lobbyists are trying their hardest to tear that law to pieces.”

Kamski placed his hand against his chest in mock shock. “Are you here to arrest me, Lieutenant? Because of some fantasy that two small people with a grudge have dreamt up together? I’m afraid you’re going to need more than that. I could call one of my lawyers, and they’d work so fast that you wouldn’t even get me as far as the front door before a written complaint of shoddy and injurious police work hit your superior’s desk.”

And the worst of it was that Hank knew he was right. He didn’t have enough, not nearly enough to do anything to a man like Kamski. So, he made a tactical retreat.

“Can I speak with your husband about that night?”

“I’m not entirely sure that he’s at home right now.”

“Where does he work? I can try him there.”

Kamski grinned, the most honest human emotion that Hank had seen on his face since this meeting began. “Work?” He scoffed. “Connor doesn’t work.”

Hank nodded, not really surprised. Of course, an asshole like Kamski would keep a trophy husband. He wondered if this Connor would be as blank as Kamski’s desk or as sullenly perfect as Kamski’s house.

“Well, I’ll be back to talk with him later.” Hank made a turn towards the door.

“If you must, Lieutenant, though I must tell you that I’ll be speaking with the police chief and the district attorney at my next dinner and asking them if they’re satisfied with how the DPD is spending its meagre resources,” Kamski called after him.

“You do that, Mr. Kamski,” Hank muttered, not really caring if the piece of shit heard him or not.

The door shut behind him and he was standing in the cold hall again, breathing hard like he’d just faced down a tiger and lived. He looked around at the other shut doors and then at the stairs leading somewhere upstairs. That blonde girl would probably soon appear and usher him out the door. But until then he was still a guest in the house, a guest that would like to talk to this Connor before his husband got to him.

The sound of a splash caught his attention, directing him to the door to the right of that big-as-fuck painting of Kamski. He hesitated, his hand on the door knob. Fuck it. What was Fowler going to do? Discipline him? Again? It would be worth it if he could catch an asshole like Kamski. 

He opened the door.

The first impression that Hank got of the room was _Red_. No, he thought, it’s not possible. Not even someone like Kamski would have built a pool and filled it with—but no, at a second glance he saw that fluid sluicing off the young man’s back as he hoisted himself out of the pool was plain water. It was only the interior of the pool that was tiled in a deep, blood-like red.

The young man turned around and sat on the edge, his calves still dangling into the water. He looked up and his whole body jerked in surprise at seeing Hank standing on the other side of the pool.

“Who are you?” he said, his wide eyes sweeping over Hank from top to bottom and then back again. Hank knew what he was seeing, knew that he must be a strange sight with his loud shirt, straggly hair and beard, and rumpled suit standing in the middle of all these cold and straight lines.

The young man, on the other hand, looked to be designed by the same hand which had created the house: a slim and evenly proportioned body which was lightly muscled in all the right places. The face was a curious blend of firm and soft: a plush mouth framed by an angular jaw and warm, brown eyes under a determined brow. The hair was wet and pushed back, though a cowlick seemed determined to curl back over his forehead. The man was simply gorgeous and Hank knew at once that this must be Connor.

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson from the DPD.” His voice echoed strangely against the tiles and the water.

“You’re from the police?” Connor’s eyebrows rose up. “Which division?”

Hank fished his ID out of his pocket and held it up. “Homicide.”

Connor narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “Do you expect me to be able read that from here?” He held out his hand in front of him. “Chuck it over.”

“And have it fall into the water? No way.” Hank shook his head. “I have to pay for a new one, you know.”

“You don’t know how to throw?”

“It’s more that I don’t think you know how to catch.”

The corner of Connor’s mouth lifted slightly, a small movement that Hank would have missed if he hadn’t been staring at that face ever since Connor turned around to him. “Try me,” he said, his eyes flashing with something indefinable.

And so of course, Hank did. He took a step forward and lobbed the ID in a soft curve over to Connor, only the light weight and the odd shape of it made it go slightly to the right. Hank was sure that would land neatly into the corner of the pool until he saw Connor’s left arm shoot out and grab it surely out of the air.

Hank couldn’t help an impressed raise of one eyebrow. “Nice.” Maybe this kid had played baseball before becoming the pampered pretty boy sitting in front of him now.

Connor smiled in acknowledgment before checking the ID. “Homicide,” he murmured as he looked up at Hank with a serious expression. “Who died?”

“Nobody you would know, Mr. Kamski.”

He frowned. “Connor. My name is Connor.”

Hank opened his mouth to say more but was interrupted by the door opening behind him.

“Lieutenant Anderson?” That young woman came to stand next to him. “It’s time for you to leave.”

“Just a minute,” he waved her away like a fly buzzing at his face, “I just need to ask Connor here a few questions.”

Her voice grew firmer. “I’m afraid you’ve outstayed your welcome.”

Hank looked back at Connor, obviously appealing to him for an invitation to stay.

Connor looked between them, the earlier cockiness at having made that catch completely erased from his face. “Yes,” he said slowly, his voice becoming softer and more carefully modulated, “if Chloe says you have to go then…” he finished with a shrug. “I can’t help you, Lieutenant.”

Hank saw that beautiful face close off completely. “Just one question?”

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

Chloe spoke again. “I can have you removed, Lieutenant Anderson.” 

Hank sighed. He was too old to be getting into fights with a billionaire’s hired goons. “Okay, okay, I’m going, you don’t have to get rough. The smell of chlorine is making me nauseous, anyway.” He threw one last look at Connor and turned around, out through the door, the presence of the smaller Chloe pressing at him until he was standing in front of the house again, looking at the frosty windows of his car.

Well, Hank thought, that was fucking pointless. He should have told himself before coming here that a cold-hearted billionaire and his boy toy wouldn’t give a shit about the two drained bodies that have been found in the last month. As long as their pool was heated and their door was locked against people like Hank, then the whole world could burn for all they cared.

He drove back to the station, only pausing at The Chicken Feed to dull his disappointment with a burger and some mindless chat with Gary about last night’s game. It helped for a bit but as soon as Hank was back in his car, he couldn’t stop thinking about Connor, about what he might have said if Hank had only had one minute more alone with him.

He slumped down at his desk, ignoring Fowler’s pointed stare through the glass wall from his office, the silent demand for Hank to present himself and recite what he had learned at Kamski’s. But Hank wasn’t ready to disappoint just yet. Maybe there was another way of tackling this case. Applying more pressure on Andronikov? He’d already sent Ben to do that but maybe if--

The shrill sound of the phone on his desk tore through his train of thought and he grabbed it with a growly, “what?”

The bored voice of the station’s telephone operator sounded down the line. “Lieutenant Anderson? There’s a Connor who’s wanting to speak with you.”

Hank blinked. “Connor?”

“That’s all he said. You want me to put him through?”

“Y-yeah,” Hank’s tongue felt caught in his mouth. “Yeah, put him through.”

There was a silence and then a crackle. Hank held his breath.

“Lieutenant?” The voice was hushed, almost a whisper.

“Yeah?”

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson, born September 6, 1985, ID-number Four-O-Five-Eight-Nine—“

“Fuck,” Hank muttered, shaking his head at his own idiocy. “You’ve still got my ID.”

“For all the care you took with it, you did hurry away rather quickly without asking for it back,” Connor answered and Hank would swear that he could hear a smile in his voice.

“So would you if you had that miniature rottweiler snapping at your heels.”

Connor laughed shortly before seeming to cut himself off, the hush returning to his voice. “I suppose you want it back?”

Hank leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. Where was Connor going with this? “Yeah, sure,” he said noncommittally.

“I can’t be seen at the police station. A-and I don’t want you coming back here, either.”

“I don’t really want to go there again.”

Connor hesitated and all Hank could hear was him breathing down the line. Finally, he said, “you know the public library? There’s a couch and a couple of chairs at the bottom of the third floor, near the section with law books?” Connor paused. “Well, I’m going be there tomorrow at around 11.”

“That’s convenient,” Hank said, “so am I.”

Connor breathed a small laugh. “I’ll give you back your ID then, okay?”

“Sounds fine to me,” Hank said as he noted the time and place on a pad of paper although there was no chance that he would ever forget this phone call.

“See you then,” Connor said.

“Yeah, see you,” Hank said and he heard Connor hanging up and the line going dead.

He looked unseeing down at his desk, the pen in his hand drumming a random rhythm as he thought through the maybe dozen words he had exchanged with this Connor. 

“Huh,” Hank said out loud to nobody but himself. This might be it. This just might be it.


	2. See you on the third floor

To the right of the entrance to Detroit’s main public library, there was a small cluster of pine trees. They were a bit of an anomaly in the otherwise open and welcoming space, but right now they served Hank’s purpose very well, as he slunk back into the shadow of the tallest tree, his eyes fixed on the path leading up to the entrance.

He had been here since a little past 10, wanting to see the kid arrive, to see if he brought anyone with him to the meeting. Hank didn’t become a lieutenant in the DPD by allowing himself to be ambushed in a faraway corner of the third floor in a public library. No matter how much he had enjoyed the sound of Connor’s laughter over the phone.

Hank stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, a shiver running through his shoulders and down his back. Somehow, the coldness of a Michigan winter still always caught him off guard. He checked his watch again. It shouldn’t be long now.

And then Connor was there in front of him. Striding up the centre of the path, wearing an expensive-looking navy pea coat and a maroon scarf slung around his neck in the sort of casual way that only 5 minutes of careful manoeuvring in front of a mirror can achieve. 

Hank watched from the trees as Connor stopped at the door, holding it open as another man carrying a toddler and a bag of books exited, and then he disappeared into the building as quickly as he had appeared in front of Hank just 10 seconds earlier.

Hank wasn’t sure if he should be surprised or not. There had been no hesitation, no last orders from another party, no mute signalling, just a young man going to an arranged meeting with his head held high. And now Hank definitely didn’t want to keep him waiting.

A lot of things were happening on the third floor: an unemployment seminar called ‘Keeping your Head above Water’ was taking place in a side room near the entrance, there was a line of student-looking kids at the librarian’s desk, and every computer was occupied by a frayed-looking person with too many bags checking their e-mails. But the further Hank descended into the library, leaving the open space behind him in exchange for bulging shelves all around, the quieter and more secluded it became. He realised that Connor had chosen this spot well for a secret meeting between a cop and a possible informant.

His footsteps on the linoleum floor must have been louder than he thought, because when Hank reached the couch in the far corner Connor was sitting there, already looking up at him with an expectant look in his eyes.

“Lieutenant.”

Hank slumped down next to him, feeling the couch jerk slightly back at the weight of him. “Come on. You of all people should know my name by now.”

Connor fished the ID out of his coat pocket. “And your height, and your weight, and your eye colour. Though…,” he squinted as he looked between Hank and the ID, “your hair is longer than in your photo.”

“It’s an old photo,” Hank grumbled.

“From when you were made lieutenant?”

Hank thought about it. “Yeah, probably. They like to get some snaps of you in your new uniform, looking all fresh from the box. 

“You look like you’re posing for a DPD recruitment poster.” Connor smiled as he looked at the small photo.

“A far cry from the reality sitting in front of you, I bet,” Hank said as he made a small, forward movement to collect the ID from Connor.

Connor looked back at him with an inscrutable look but still kept hold of the thing. “That was after the red ice busts, wasn’t it? When you were made lieutenant?”

Hank turned his head fully and really studied Connor. “You’ve looked me up.”

Connor looked unapologetic. “The internet is a wonderful thing,” he said with a one-shoulder-shrug.

“Uh-huh,” Hank replied while secretly wondering why someone like Connor was interested in knowing more about someone like Hank. “Yeah, that was after that whole red ice business. Not that the task force did much to help, only temporarily slowed down the dealing.” Hank rolled his shoulders, trying to work out a crick in his neck. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but people are still OD’ing on the stuff all over town.”

“I’ve noticed,” Connor murmured. “You have to wonder what kind of lives people are living, when they feel like their best option is feeling nothing at all.” Connor flipped Hank’s ID from one hand to the other. “When numbness is better than anything reality has to offer.”

“Maybe you have to wonder,” Hank answered, his voice gruff, “but some of us don’t.”

Connor narrowed his eyes as he studied Hank, the ID stilling in his right hand.

“You wanna give that back to me now?” Hank finally said, gesturing at it.

“In a minute.” His fingers started running over the blunt outer edge. “You ever lost it before?”

“You mean, do I go around handing it over to whoever asks for it? Then no.”

“I must be special then, huh?” Connor looked back at him, soft eyes asking Hank to agree.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know when I figure you out.” Hank paused, wondering if he should introduce the tiger into the conversation now. “I talked with your husband about you.”

Something flickered in those eyes. “Oh?”

“Did he say anything to you about my coming to your house yesterday?”

“No? I mean he called you a couple of names but I’m sure you don’t want me repeating any of it.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before, I bet. Anything else?”

“No.”

“He knows you’re meeting me here today?”

“No of course not,” Connor scoffed, “look, why do you want to keep talking about Elijah?”

Hanks sighed. Might as well get this over with. “Can you account for where you were on the evening of November the fifth?”

Connor’s hand squeezed around the ID. “Oh.” He ducked his head, as if he tried to disappear behind the scarf still loosely tied around his neck. “Do you know the kind of chill that settles in your stomach when a lieutenant from the homicide division asks you a question like that?”

“I can imagine,” Hank said, “I’ve seen it in others often enough.”

“Fifth of November, right? That’s more than a month ago.” Connor blew out a slow breath as he thought. “Can you remember where you were a month ago?”

“Don’t know – probably at home, hanging out with my dog, watching TV.”

“ _Probably_ , right,” Connor nodded, “I could say the same thing: I was _probably_ doing this or _probably_ doing that. But probably doesn’t seem to quite cut it when you’re being questioned by the police.”

“This isn’t a court of law, Connor - we’re just talking.”

“Are we? Because right now it doesn’t sound like you agreed to meet with me just to talk.”

Hank looked at his ID which was still being held between Connor’s fidgeting fingers. “No, I came to get that back.”

Connor was by now balancing it between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, the card bending slightly at the pressure on its corners. Connor looked down as well, suddenly remembering what it was he was playing with. “Take it, then.” He flicked it towards Hank, a gesture worthy of a prince dismissing a servant.

Hank fumbled but finally caught it against his chest, his own upside down face looking back at him from the old photo.

“You know,” he said slowly, “you could have sent this to me, either by mail or by minion. But you wanted to meet up with me. Why?” Hank cocked his head. “You knew I had some questions for you.”

“You’re right.” Connor stood up abruptly, straightening his coat with a jerk. “I made a mistake. I—I misunderstood.” There was that strange note to his voice again. It unnerved Hank with its stiff, inhuman tones, somewhere between a news anchor and a language learning app. 

“Hey,” he tried to soften his own voice, “there’s no need to leave. We can just talk if you want to.”

“No, you’ve got your ID back. You don’t owe me anything now. You don’t have to be--” Connor cut himself off while winding his scarf around his neck with much less care than earlier.

“Wait. Just…wait a minute.” Hank dug around in his pockets for anything to write with and anything to write upon. “Let me give you my personal number.” He finally found an old crumbled receipt and a promotional pen. He balanced the scrap against his thigh as he wrote, the numbers coming out more crooked than he would have liked. “If you become more certain about that night than, you know, _probably_ , let me know.” He held out the paper for Connor to take.

Connor moved from one foot to the other as his gaze flickered between the phone number and Hank’s face. “Your personal number? Why are you trusting me with that?”

Hank looked back at him. “Because you asked me one thing that your husband never even bothered to consider when someone from homicide turned up with a list of questions.” Hank paused. “You said to me, ‘who died?’”

Connor licked his lips. “Yeah, of course.”

Hank nodded. “That’s why I’m trusting you with my number and trusting you to remember what you were doing on the fifth, all right?” He was still holding out the scrap, his hand unwavering.

Connor hesitated but he finally reached out, the tips of his fingers touching Hank’s palm like a whisper as he gathered up the slip of paper. “I’m not promising anything,” he said as he tucked the receipt into his coat’s inner pocket.

Hank dropped his head once in acknowledgment, and when he looked up again it was to see the back of that navy pea coat hurrying away.

* * *

Connor sat in the taxi in silence, ignoring the screen in front of him, almost as wide as his entire field of vision, and how it was still nudging him to make his choice of entertainment. He would have preferred to walk home, hell, to _run_ home, that was how much his body and mind was vibrating with energy after his meeting at the library. But he knew that Elijah wouldn’t have liked it if anyone saw his husband trudging through the slush and the snow like that.

The taxi rolled to a smooth stop. Connor got out, swiping his acceptance of the cost as he did. The car drove silently away, leaving him just standing there with his back to the house. He waited a moment. On this side of the property there were trees, a forest of them thick enough to keep any prying eyes out. He kept his gaze on them as he held and released a slow breath and then another. Finally, he turned around to the front door.

There is a certain kind of pause that Connor has gotten used to making whenever he entered the house. He had first learnt it at Amanda’s, and that skill still helped him since living with Elijah.

It was a pause that asked many questions:

Any unusual sounds? 

Any shouting?

Is anyone close by?

Are there any guests in the house?

Can I reach my room before being called back?

Do I have anything on me that I need to hide before then?

Have I done anything wrong?

This was so ingrained in Connor that most days he wasn’t even aware that he was doing it - that even as he simply shrugged off his coat, this hyper-awareness of everything around him was crackling from the tips of his ears and down his spine. It wouldn’t go away until he shut the door to his own room behind him.

Right now, the house seemed quiet. It made Connor finally relax the grip he had on the crumbled receipt. He looked down at it. The sweat from his hand had smudged one or two of the digits but he could still make it out – Lieutenant Hank Anderson’s phone number. 

This was definitely something that needed to be hidden and hidden well.

In the back of the largest closet, buried under a pile of unopened shoe boxes, there was another, larger box. It held, among other things, some of Connor’s old college text books, a worn pillow which still smelled like his childhood bed, various bits and baubles that Elijah would laugh at if Connor displayed them openly, and his old phone and charger. That was where he would keep the lieutenant’s note.

Connor closed the lid over the box and arranged the closet back to its usual state, making sure that it looked as carelessly disorganized as always.

It wasn’t that Connor would face any serious consequences if most of his secrets were revealed. He wasn’t living in some Gothic melodrama where his husband would beat him across the moors and back again before locking him up in the highest tower. The most that Elijah would do was sneer or laugh or roll his eyes, and then he’d probably tell Amanda some night during dinner. She would then give Connor that look, that look which said that she had always known that he was a particularly stupid boy.

It was just easier, Connor always told himself, easier if he kept his interests, his excesses, and his sentiments hidden. They couldn’t use them to hurt him if they didn’t know anything about them.

And now Hank Anderson was part of those secrets. _Hank_. Had he given Connor permission to use his first name? He went over their conversation again in his mind but he still wasn’t sure. 

He had looked so odd, suddenly appearing in the middle of the pool room yesterday. Connor’s eyes had still been blurry from the water, when he had first seen him through the damp of the humid room. But Hank had looked far from a fantasy or an apparition; he was much too sturdy and real for that. He had just stood there, both feet planted as if they had taken root, and had looked Connor square in the face. 

Connor had liked him pretty much immediately. 

When he had seen him again today, had felt Hank’s warmth and his bulk right next to him, had felt a flush spread over his own neck whenever Hank had spoken to him in that low, rough voice – that was when Connor knew that Hank Anderson was definitely something he needed to keep hidden. 

Even if all he would ever want from Connor was information about Elijah and November the fifth.

The sound of steps on the stairs touched the rim of his ears with an electric prickle. He knew that footstep. A quick glance at the closet to make sure that it was completely closed, a toss of his scarf from the bed to behind the door, and a bland expression on his face ready to greet Chloe who was by now opening the door to Connor’s room.

“Yes?” 

Chloe cocked her head slightly to the side like she always did whenever she spoke to Connor, as if she was disciplining a slow-learning puppy. “Elijah will be needing you tonight.”

“Oh. To go out or…?”

“In his bedroom.”

Connor nodded. He needed a second shower, then. Elijah wanted him pristine and clean.

* * *

Sumo was pushing his big head against Hank’s thigh as soon as he stepped through the door to his house that night, whining for a walk.

“Alright, alright, just let me…” He emptied his pockets of everything but his phone and keys, leaving it all on the kitchen table. He then picked up his earbuds and the leash before going outside again with the dog.

Sumo knew the path that they had both walked hundreds of times before, leaving Hank to simply follow behind as he tried to drown out his thoughts by turning the music up. Someone that he vaguely recognised as a neighbour from across the street, nodded at him as she passed, her mouth moving in a way that Hank interpreted as a general greeting. He gave her a half-smile before quickly ducking his head down and pressing onwards.

By now, Sumo had gotten most of the cooped-up jitters out of his body. He was slowing down more and more, any passing scent seeming to catch his fancy, until he stopped completely at a patch of shovelled and compacted snow, the several yellow streaks in it speaking of more than one dog leaving its mark behind. Hank knew that Sumo needed some time and some deep sniffs before getting to grips with which other dogs had been walking on his path. So, he relaxed back onto his heels with his hands deep in his pockets and waited.

Maybe it was a mistake, giving the kid his number. If anyone asked Hank why he had done it, he still wouldn’t be able to tell them. There was, after all, no damn reason why he should trust this Connor to do the right thing. Connor belonged to Kamski, his nice pea coat and fine woollen scarf belonged to Kamski, his heated pool belonged to Kamski, and there were probably parts of his pretty face that belonged to fucking Kamski.

Sumo pulled on the leash and pulled Hank from his bitter thoughts. They started walking again. The music in his ears was coming from his phone, but Hank still found himself patting his jacket pocket from time to time, making sure that it was still there. 

One final turn and they were in front of his house again. Once inside, he tossed his jacket over the back of the couch before scooping some food for Sumo into his bowl. He looked into the fridge for anything to eat and settled on some cold, sticky pasta that he nuked in the microwave and poured chilli sauce over to make it edible. He ate it in front of the TV before going looking for whatever bottle he could find. A quart of bourbon was sitting in the cabinet above the sink. Hank made himself get down a glass as well, pouring two fingers, maybe a bit more than two, and leaving the bottle where he found it. He counted that as a small victory.

He sat back down, his body feeling tired and heavy. Some kind of talk show was on with an expert in the studio to talk about winter fashions, smiling models standing behind her with perfectly rosy cheeks and fine leather accessories. Hank felt himself sink lower in the couch as he took another sip from his glass.

The room was completely dark when he woke again, the TV now playing the middle of some 90s drama with two people talking intensely in a doctor’s office. He looked over to see Sumo lying on his blanket, small, strangled woofs escaping him as he chased something in his dreams. That wasn’t usually enough to wake Hank, though. He looked around for anything else out of place.

His unspoken question was answered when he heard a small ding coming from the jacket that was strewn nearby. He rubbed a hand over his face before reaching over to dig his phone out, the empty glass falling from the couch to the carpeted floor as he did.

Hank turned the phone over in his hand and activated the screen. A single message was sitting there from a number he didn’t know:

(11:49 PM) _What’s your dog’s name?_


	3. Talk to me

The hairs curling at the back of Connor’s neck were still damp from his third shower of the day, when he dug into the back of his closet and got out his old phone and Hank’s number.

Kneeling on the floor, knowing that he had to get ahead of any possible second thoughts, he sent off the text.

It wasn’t always like this when Elijah was done with him for the night. Most of the time, when Connor shut the door behind him, he felt a sense of relief, like when you’ve finally finished something you procrastinated doing for far too long, and now when it’s done, you feel free to do whatever you want without that niggling anxiety at the back of your mind.

But there were other times, when every indifferent touch Elijah had placed on his body, every muttered instruction in how to move, how to be - they had all been like a drop of water to a man dying of thirst; not nearly enough to satisfy but enough to remind him what he desperately needs.

Connor knew he was being pathetic, but he needed a human connection right now, any one that he could possibly find.

After re-arranging the closet, he stuck the phone under the pillow on his bed and went to brush his teeth, lingering in the doorway to his bedroom as he did, the light from the bathroom creating a lit-up corridor heading to his dark bed. He spat and rinsed his mouth, the sound of the faucet loud in all this quiet.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes since he sent it, and it was late, after all. Hank might have already gone to bed, or maybe he was on a stakeout, or interrogating an unwilling suspect at the station, or… Connor sat down on the bed and pulled out the phone.

(11:55 PM) _this Connor?_

Connor threw a quick glance at his closed door before he answered.

(11:57 PM) Yes this is Connor  
(11:57 PM) You didn’t answer my question

(11:58 PM) _well you never answered any of mine_  
(11:58 PM) _guess that makes us even_

Connor could feel himself smiling as he looked down at the phone.

(11:59 PM) I’ll answer one of yours if you answer mine

He wrote it quickly, grabbing hold of the connection before it slipped away, and hit ‘send’ before he had time to consider what it was he was promising. 

His phone was always muted, of course, but the screen suddenly changing from messages to an incoming call still made Connor flinch, and he realised just how intently he had been staring at it.

He walked quickly to the door, Hank’s number still lighting up the screen in his hand. He pressed his body to the door to feel if it was securely shut. An ear against the wood told him that nobody was close by. 

He took the call back at the bed. “Yes?” he murmured.

“You serious?”

It wasn’t until right then that Connor realised that he was, that he needed the excuse. “Yes,” he nodded though no one was there to see, “yes, I am.”

The phone crackled with Hank’s expelled breath. It almost sounded like a laugh. “Well, my dog’s name is Sumo.”

“Good name. Strong.”

“More like big and a total pushover.”

Connor smiled again. A big man like Hank should have a big dog.

“You ready for your part of our deal?” Hank asked.

“I’m…” Connor licked his lips. “Yeah, sure.”

“All right. Has Kamski,” Hank interrupted himself, “has your husband ever talked about a company called Ichor?”

“Ichor?” Connor blinked. “Like the blood of the gods?”

There was a momentary pause on the other end of the line. “Yeah,” Hank answered slowly, “or immortals. It’s that last thing that’s important. They’re promising eternal youth, you see. For as long as you’re willing to pay, anyway.”

“Pay for what? What are they actually selling?”

“Blood. Young blood pumped into the bodies of aging millionaires and billionaires – supposed to keep them young and beautiful.” Hank said that last word with obvious distaste.

Something thick appeared at the back of Connor’s mouth. He swallowed. “Where does the blood come from?” he almost whispered.

“Well, the best we can work out is that they started buying it illegally from some asshole who worked at a donation centre in Houston. When that was discovered, the asshole went to prison, but the CEO of Ichor Inc just seemed to waltz away. It couldn’t be proven, you see, that he knew the blood bags weren’t freely given by the donors to support his business.”

“So, all those people in Houston who donated blood, who wanted to help others - that was all just wasted?”

“Pretty much.” Hank sighed. “Zlatko Andronikov – that’s the CEO – then seemed to realise that stealing blood wasn’t a long-term solution. So, he thought, why not buy it?”

Connor pressed his lips tightly together as he thought about the kind of person who would sell their blood. 

“The homeless, drug addicts, anyone in a chronic or recent desperate situation – literally selling their lifeblood to stay alive,” Hank said, confirming what Connor was thinking.

Something cold crept down Connor’s neck. “You’re from homicide,” he whispered, “why is this, a case for homicide?”

Hank sighed deep in his chest, the sound almost turning into a groan. “We found the first body almost a month ago. Lena was staying at her sister’s apartment after breaking up with her boyfriend and moving out of his. It was her sister that found her still in bed that morning. I saw a picture of her from before and she was a lovely, young woman. Big smile, black curls and dark brown skin that looked like it glowed from within.” Hank paused. “Her skin was almost grey that morning, and it seemed to have shrivelled up, like she had been dying for weeks. Maybe she had. She was a school teacher, and she just needed enough money for three months’ rent and a security deposit on a new apartment. Felt ashamed about relying on her sister so much.” A hard swallow was heard down the line. “Her sister didn’t stop crying for a single second while I was talking with her that morning.”

“Oh, God.” Connor had bent forwards where he sat on the bed, his chest close to his knees.

“Then there was another one ten days after that. Matt was a student with some gambling debts, he didn’t want his parents finding out about. CCTV showed him staggering around on the street that night, most people who passed him simply taking him for a drunk and turning their heads away. He finally collapsed and died in Capitol Park. The EMTs were surprised that he was able to stay on his feet so long with so little blood left in his body. But he was a strong, young man, 20 years old, a football player in high school. That’s probably why he was persuaded to sell just one more pint of it.”

Now Connor really felt like he was going to be sick. “Are there anymore?”

“That’s the issue we’re dealing with now. As far as we can see, Lena and Matt were the first of their kind: low-risk, well-adjusted, no drugs, no drink. But some of us have been looking back even earlier, finding cases of homeless dying of what was thought to be exposure to the elements, of drug-addicts OD’ing like they do every fucking day in Detroit. Nobody spent much time looking into it at the time but--”

“You think some of them were selling their blood, as well? Selling too much of it?”

“That’s the theory. And if that’s so, then we’re looking at multiple bodies all over Detroit, drained and then dumped. All because of some rich asshole’s vanity.”

Connor’s could feel his pulse jumping upwards, pumping out a hit of adrenaline as his mind raced. “But there hasn’t been anyone since Matt? No – what did you call it – high-risk cases? No homeless or addicts found dead that you can prove were missing inordinate amounts of blood?”

There was a pause on Hank’s side. “No.”

“That would mean Ichor is making changes in where they’re sourcing their blood. Don’t you think?”

“Maybe…” Hank trailed off; a definite doubt in his voice.

“I mean,” Connor continued, almost as if he hadn’t heard Hank, “they got to know that there will be more interest in the death of a Lena or Matt, than in somebody living on the outskirts of society. Why take the chance? I know, I know,” he quickly added at hearing Hank draw in a breath to respond, “that’s a shitty thing to say but that doesn’t make it less true.”

“You think they’re actively killing people, do you?”

“I think they consider the death of the donor to be a regrettable but often unavoidable side-effect. You forget, I live with people like—” Connor shut his mouth with an audible click, only now realising what he was saying.

Silence stretched out between them.

“Connor.” Hank’s voice was deep and to the point. “You never answered my question.”

His hand was covering his mouth now, afraid of what he was going to say. This was all very real to him, now. “No,” he finally whispered.

“Did he ever mention Ichor?”

A corner of the thumbnail on Connor’s left hand was coming loose. He bit at it, his fisted hand still covering most of the lower half of his face.

“There was something…once.”

“I’m gonna need more than that, Connor.”

He sighed. “A week or so before Halloween, a friend of Elijah’s from school came to visit, came for dinner. These dinners are usually quite boring to sit through, but this friend, Bradley was his name, he was drinking a lot and because he was drinking, he was talking a lot, a lot more than I think Elijah wanted him to in front of me.”

“Uh huh,” Hank said, obviously prompting Connor to get to the point.

“And then he was thanking Elijah for telling him about Ichor, about how his wife had never looked more beautiful, about how it had saved their sex life. I assumed at the time that Ichor was some sort of plastic surgery or spa treatment, maybe a company who specialised in sex therapy, I don’t know, I didn’t really much care. I do remember noticing the name, Ichor, because it reminded me of when I was a pretentious teen and really into Greek mythology.”

“Did Kamski respond to any of this?”

“I think he sort of smirked and waved away Bradley’s gratitude before changing the subject.”

“This Bradley, you got his full name?” There was a definite sound of rummaging in drawers and then pencil scratching over paper.

“No, he was introduced to me as just Bradley. And I don’t know the school, either. Though, listening to how they talked about the old days, it has to be either college or university.”

“Don’t worry. We can look that up. Might need to show you a picture or two for a definite ID.”

“Okay,” Connor replied. This was happening, then. He was getting involved.

The sound of the scratching pencil kept going for another moment. Then it stopped.

“Hey, Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“You know, we’ve been stuck for some time and this…this is a least somewhere we haven’t been before. So, thank you for that.” 

“Yeah,” Connor mumbled in acknowledgment, “okay.”

Hank’s voice seemed really close to Connor’s ear as he said, “So do you wanna ask me another question before I go? On the house?”

“I…” Connor licked his lips, “I don’t…” His mind seemed to have been wiped clean of anything but those low, gravelly tones. “No, that’s fine,” he managed as he glanced at his bedside clock, seeing that it was close to one in the morning. “It’s late, anyway.”

“Yeah.” Hank paused. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Connor’s eyes flickered back and forth, looking at nothing in particular, mostly trying to make up a picture in his head of what Hank’s face might look like right now. “Goodnight, then,” he offered.

“Night, Connor. And if you remember anything else, you’ve got my number.”

The line went dead.

Connor lowered the phone from his ear. He felt a muscle in his right shoulder twinge as he did, only now realising just how tense he must have been during most of their conversation. He held the phone in his lap for a bit, feeling its fading warmth against his bare thighs.

Then, somewhere in the house, someone coughed, and the sound of it pushed Connor into motion. He hid his phone away, set his room in order, and then dove into bed.

He lay there in the dark, his arms slung above his head, his eyes looking up at the dark ceiling. He thought about Hank, but mostly his mind kept going over everything he’d told Connor about the case and about Ichor. And he thought about how Elijah knew about Ichor, too. 

But, Connor kept thinking, did Elijah know about Lena and Matt and all of the other nameless, grey corpses all over Detroit?


	4. Mall stories

“You’re up early,” Elijah drawled, not looking up from the tablet in his hand. He was standing at the kitchen counter, his usual green tea in front of him.

Connor gave him his practised smile, anyway. “I thought we might have breakfast together.”

Elijah made a show of looking around at the painfully bare surfaces of his stainless kitchen. “I don’t think Chloe has anything ready for you; like I said: you are up very early.”

“I’ll just get some toast.” Connor moved behind Elijah, letting the muscles in his face relax for a moment while he put the slices of bread into the toaster. “Do you want some?” His voice was light and inquisitive.

“I’ve already eaten.” Elijah’s head was still bent over the tablet, showing off the hairs at the back of his neck, each of them looking like they had been individually cut.

Connor pressed the bread down into the machine before sneaking a look at Elijah’s arms. As he had been working on falling asleep last night, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the case. He had kept trying to figure out when he had last seen Elijah with his sleeves rolled up. Early this morning, he had googled _blood transfusion needle_ on his phone, still lying in bed as he did, scrolling through images of wide-headed needles straining under the skin of nameless arms. If you repeatedly inserted a thing of that size into the same vein, Connor thought, then it would surely leave behind obvious puncture wounds when newly done and some probable scar tissue after a while.

He looked at Elijah’s arms again, noting how the starched cuffs of his white shirt sat perfectly balanced on his wrists, small platinum bars holding them closed. Connor berated himself again for not being more present and attentive the last time he went to Elijah’s bedroom.

“So…” Connor leaned back against the counter. “What are you doing today?”

“Oh, this and that. I think you’d find it very boring if I started listing everything.”

Connor smiled that smile again. “Try me.”

Elijah glanced up, pursed his mouth in disbelief at him but made no other answer.

It took everything for Connor not to make a sound of frustration. “For example,” he persisted, “who are you meeting with today?”

Finally, the tablet was put down next to the cup of tea. Connor reflexively noted that the screen was only showing an ordinary news app. 

Elijah drew in a slow breath and let it out through his nose as he focused his gaze on Connor. “You’re very curious today.”

Connor shrugged his shoulders and let his head fall to one side in what he calculated to be an adorable look. “Just feeling a bit bored, I guess.”

Elijah hummed as he took a step closer, then another one. Connor kept his eyes on him, like one does a wild animal. As Elijah’s right hand came towards him, he repressed every signal his body was giving him to tense up. He then felt how his cowlick was forced away from his forehead, felt it being pressed flat against his scalp, felt the hair follicles burn at being brushed against so harshly. 

“I should have thought,” Elijah’s voice was low and slippery, “that the two of us had had plenty of fun last night. Enough to at least satisfy you for more than 8 hours.” Those fingers curved around his skull, hard and unyielding, like five lengths of rope threatening to tie together and pull tight.

Connor ducked his head in what he hoped looked shy and not as a way of getting away from Elijah’s touch. The hand slid down but Elijah still had a firm grip on the back of his neck.

“You know I always want more of you, Elijah,” Connor murmured.

“How sweet.” The hand went away and Elijah took a step back. “But you won’t be seeing much of me today.”

“Oh.” Connor tried to make it sound disappointed and not questioning. 

“Let Chloe know that you’ll be eating alone tonight.”

And just like that, he was dismissed. Elijah drained the cooling tea and swept his tablet up from the counter on his way out of the kitchen. Connor listened to his fading footsteps and gathered from how they sounded throughout the house and by the number of doors opening and closing, that Elijah had gone into his office.

Connor stood in the silence that Elijah had left behind, and he thought about what he should do - what he _could_ do with an entire day to himself. Behind him, unnoticed, two slices of toast popped up where two slices of bread had been.

* * *

“You gave him your number?”

Ben was standing at Hank’s desk with his arms crossed over his belly, giving him the appearance of a grumpy Santa Claus.

Hank wheeled back in his chair and looked up at him. “I was fucking desperate, Ben. He was my one viable lead, and I could see that lead slipping away from me.”

“It’s not how we do things, Hank. Keep your distance – for your own sake, as well.”

Hank pushed his hair out of his face. “But it worked, didn’t it? I got something new out of it.”

“This Bradley person? Even if Kamski’s husband is telling the truth, so what? We’ve already got the two witnesses placing Kamski at the Europa Club and paying for a transfusion. One more guy isn’t going to make getting a conviction any easier.”

“What if it’s something more, Ben? What if Kamski’s not just a client but a partner in Ichor?”

“Because he’s recommending it to others, like this Bradley? People do that all the time, Hank. Hell, my wife can’t have a five minute chat with a new person before she’s taking them by the hand and telling them about this spicy sausage she buys at our local butcher.” His voice was fond. “Sometimes, I think she loves that sausage more than me.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Hank threw a crooked smile up at him. Ben was all right. A good man, a steady partner, and always ready to do the work.

Ben’s crossed arms had relaxed a bit. Hank knew he couldn’t keep the hard-ass routine up for long. “You going to talk to this Connor again?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been doing fine so far by letting him take the lead and not pressuring him too much.” He picked up a dead leaf that his bonsai maple had dropped on his desk and crunched it between his fingers. “I can’t just call him out of the blue. Don’t want him to get spooked and run away.”

Ben nodded. “What’s he like?”

Hank pursed his lips as he thought. What was Connor like? “He has this quiet, mellow voice, except when he gets excited about something. Then it gets real intense. He’s good-looking, of course, but I don’t think his looks matter much to him. I-- I think he’s a better person than his husband,” he spoke slowly, the idea only completely formulating once he finished saying it. “That was real sympathy I heard in his voice.”

“Or he’s a good actor,” Ben counter-offered, “these trophy wives and husbands often have to be, their livelihoods depend too much on being pleasing to others.”

Hank shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I trust you to know, Hank.” Ben patted him on the shoulder. “You want a coffee? I’m gonna go get one.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He watched Ben walk away, but his mind was still on Connor, that sliver of doubt that Ben had planted nagging at him. Was Connor just playing with him? Making the right kinds of caring noises when learning about the victims? Leaving out a trail of crumbs for him to follow to nowhere? Hank remembered how Connor had looked him up before their meeting at the library. Why had he done that? To figure out Hank’s pressure points, maybe? To figure out how to act in front of Hank to bring out the most sympathy, the most attention? But if that was what he was doing, then why hadn’t he mentioned anything to do with—

“Here you go.” A paper cup brimming with coffee was placed in front of him, derailing his train of thought.

Hank murmured his thanks before taking a careful sip; that machine in the break room seemed to only have two settings: as cold as Lake Michigan in winter or the surface of the sun itself.

“I’ve been thinking,” Ben said, sipping at his own cup. “Maybe this Connor is just, you know, bored.”

“Bored?”

“Bored of his life, bored of his husband, bored of eating gold for breakfast, I don’t know. Maybe you’re the first new thing he’s come across in a while. And let’s face it, Hank: you’re a far cry from the kinda lifestyle, being a billionaire can buy you.”

“Thanks,” Hank muttered drily.

“I’m just saying, maybe that’s why he’s helping you out.”

“A minute ago, he was a probable liar and a world-class actor. Now, he’s a kid who’s bored with his toys. Did you do a Freaky Friday while getting coffee? Because I don’t think you were gone long enough for that.”

“You’re always saying I don’t think outside the box enough, Hank. I’m just offering you options to think about - because whatever he is, I don’t think any husband of Elijah Kamski is helping out the police without some private motive of his own.”

Hank took another sip but the coffee tasted like nothing to him.

* * *

Hank’s phone dinged in the afternoon. It had been three days since he last talked to Connor, and he had stopped expecting anything new after the first day.

(3:34 PM) _Can you meet me somewhere?_

Hank scratched his beard as he pondered how to answer. In the end, it didn’t take many words.

(3:36 PM) why

(3:37 PM) _I’d really like to talk to you_  
(3:37 PM) _about what you told me last time_

(3:38 PM) you got anything more to tell me?

Hank waited. The three dots appeared, disappeared and then reappeared. Connor seemed to be typing for a long time.

(3:40 PM) _I just want to talk_

Hank let out a slow breath as he hunched over his phone.

(3:41 PM) ok

(3:41 PM) _Same place as before?_

(3:42 PM) not a good idea  
(3:44 PM) there’s a half-closed mall in Durban  
(3:44 PM) near the 75 you know it?

(3:45 PM) _No but my phone does_

The corners of Hank’s mouth turned slightly upwards. The kid was all right.

(3:46 PM) meet me at the main food court in about half hour?

(3:46 PM) _I’ll be there_

* * *

The sliding doors were sluggish as Hank passed through them, his boots leaving behind islands of the grey, sludgy snow they had picked up while walking through the deserted parking lot.

The place had more of the look of a prison than a mall now. Grey bars and walls were pulled down over empty windows with only an occasional pop of colour. A Foot Locker here, a JC Penney’s further on – little islands of light in the middle of all this gloom.

Hank continued onwards, the goal clear in his mind. There was a small cart to the side of the food court that sold terrible hot dogs but somehow at the same time, really good soft pretzels; big and chewy with just the right amount of salt. Hank couldn’t understand it. Surely, all these fast food pretzels were just reheated frozen dough coming out of the same factory in New Jersey. But the facts of this pretzel couldn’t be denied. So he always made sure to stop and get one every time he passed by this mall.

He broke off a piece and ate it as he walked slowly in a circle around the food court, trying to seem interested in the few window displays. He was staring, unseeing, at a rack of cheap bracelets at Claire’s when he heard an already familiar voice next to him.

“I didn’t think glitter hearts and unicorns would be your style.” Connor glanced briefly down at Hank’s loud shirt. “But maybe…”

Hank returned the favour. Connor looked even more out of place here, in this slowly closing mall on the outskirts of town, than he had at the public library. Unless you counted the mannequins in the store windows; Connor did have some of their perfectly pressed and posed qualities.

The paper around the pretzel crinkled as Hank’s hand flexed. “Maybe it’s for my daughter.”

Connor’s gaze focused on his face. “You have a daughter?”

“No.” Hank looked away. “There’s no – No.” He shook his head. “All I got is Sumo. But who knows,” he lightened his voice, “maybe he’d like it if I brought home something sparkly to hang from his collar.”

Connor smiled. “What kind of dog is he?”

“St Bernard.”

His eyes widened. “That _is_ a big dog. Almost as big as me.”

Hank looked him up and down. “Bigger.”

“You got a picture?”

“A picture?” Hank switched the pretzel from one hand to the other as he dug out his phone from his jacket pocket. “Let me see…” He flicked quickly through his album, finally settling on a picture from last fall when Sumo had been running through a pile of leaves in the park. “Here.” He held out the phone as he watched Connor’s face split into a huge grin.

“He’s adorable.” Connor took the phone from Hank’s hand. “What a great picture!”

Hank shrugged. “Yeah, you can almost see the dog slobber glinting in the afternoon sun.”

“You love him,” Connor replied with absolute confidence.

“He’s all right.”

“I’d like a dog but—” Connor stopped himself. “I don’t think we have the room.”

“You forgetting that I’ve been to your place?” Hank rolled his eyes. “My entire house could fit inside your pool room, Connor.”

“Elijah doesn’t like dogs.” He wrinkled his nose, as if remembering something distasteful. “Thinks they’re…messy.”

“He’s right; they are. Sometimes, I don’t think I own a dog but a machine that only produces piles of dog hair and gallons of saliva. But I still fucking love him.”

Connor nodded slowly, as if he understood completely. He seemed to then realise that he was still holding Hank’s phone. As he passed it back, Hank noticed an embarrassed flush creeping over his cheeks. That couldn’t be part of an act, he thought. You can’t force your cheeks to turn red like that.

“We should start moving,” he said, “I think two grown men standing and looking at plastic jewellery this long is going to start looking suspicious.”

Connor nodded and fell into step next to him as they started another slow circle around the stores. Without any spoken agreement, they came to a stop in front of a window displaying a large, plastic Christmas tree covered in fake snow and with small, blue lights strung around it.

“This was a Halloween store a month ago. I wonder what it’ll be a month from now?”

“Valentine’s store, maybe?” Connor offered. He glanced towards the open door. “Want to go inside?”

Hank shrugged. “Sure.”

A license-free version of ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ on the store speakers, the smell of fake pine trees, and the sight of a bored-looking twenty-something behind the counter greeted them as they went in. Connor seemed to be immediately pulled to the big plastic barrels filled with shiny baubles of seemingly every size and colour. Hank casually wandered up next to him.

“I kind of want to stick my hands in,” Connor said, “just to feel what it’s like.”

Hank threw a look over his shoulder. “I’d offer to distract the store clerk, but I don’t think anything less than a tornado coming through here will make him look up from his phone.”

Connor grinned. “Better not risk it. Don’t want them calling the police on us.”

“On you, you mean.” Hank threw his head back in an exaggeratedly haughty manner. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” he sniffed.

He could see Connor’s grin widening before he turned away.

They sort of drifted for a few minutes, their paths leading away from each other before briefly merging again and again. They turned over snow globes and watched the snow fall, felt the cheap, scratchy fabric of the Santa hats, trailed their fingers through the selection of garlands, and tried figuring out which of the various snowmen looked the most demonic.

“I don’t know,” Connor said, holding up a stuffed one wearing a tartan scarf, “this one’s eyes just look very empty.”

“All their eyes look empty. You know why? Because their eyes are pieces of fucking coal, Connor.” Hank had resumed eating his pretzel by now, breaking off another piece to pop into his mouth. He noticed how Connor’s eyes followed his hand as he did.

“You want some?” he said, his right cheek bulging as he chewed. He held out the pretzel in its paper wrapper.

Connor dropped the stuffed snowman back into the box where he had found it. “You sure?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Connor closed the distance between them and broke off a piece, much smaller than the one Hank had stuffed in his mouth. “Thanks,” he murmured as he stepped back.

“Good, right?” Hank prompted. “Best pretzel in Detroit, for my money.”

“Mmmh,” Connor chewed and swallowed. “Good.”

They stood awkwardly for a moment, just looking at each other. Hank had the definite feeling of having crossed over some invisible line into an unexplored country. He often shared his food with Ben, with Chris, hell, even with that asshole Gavin if they were stuck together on a stakeout. How could something so mundane become so different with Connor? He was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling of being on an untied boat; of drifting out to sea and seeing how the shore got further and further away. Hank knew he needed to find an anchor and he needed to find it fast.

“So…” he broke the silence. “Why did you want to meet up? What did you want to talk about?”

Connor drew in breath to speak. “I—“but was interrupted by a woman with two young children bustling by them, picking up dropped mittens as she tried to corral the kids. Hank and Connor retreated to the back of the store until they found themselves standing next to a selection of large, red bows. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Connor continued, “about what we talked about last time – about where they’re sourcing the blood.”

“Right. Your theory.”

“It doesn’t make sense to you?”

Hank chewed on his lip as he thought. “It does and it doesn’t. I see what you’re saying about the victims’ profile maybe changing. I can see that. But why take the risk? Like you said, they had to know people like Lena and Matt dying would shift attention onto Ichor.”

“Why take the risk?” Connor replied, his voice low and his eyes intent, “Money, that’s why. Money. I think they can sell _clean_ blood for a much higher price than what they’ve been getting so far.”

“Clean blood,” Hank muttered, the words sticking in his throat.

He noticed an elderly couple who had been shuffling closer and closer to where Hank and Connor were standing. As they got too near them, Hank made the decision of crowding close to Connor, herding him over to a selection of festive cookie cutters. They bent their heads over them, pretending to be making a choice between the reindeer head or the holly leaf.

“I mean,” Connor spoke quietly, “I’m imagining someone pitching this idea to people like my husband and his friends and the first thing they’re going to say is, you know, ‘where is the blood coming from?’, and the second thing is, ‘you want me to inject hobo blood into my veins?’” Connor glanced around quickly but nobody was close by. “I’m just saying they would be willing to pay more for a teacher and a high school football player.”

Hank shook his head. “That sounds close to the sorry-fucking-truth.” He looked at Connor, his eyes narrowed. “You been thinking a lot about this since the last time we talked?”

“Yes.” Connor shuffled under Hank’s gaze. “I mean, how could I not?”

“Talk to your husband about it?”

Connor glanced away. “No.”

“But you think he’s got something to do with Ichor?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”

Hank rubbed a rough hand at a sudden itch on his neck. “You know, Connor, it would be a lot fucking easier for me if you just asked him.”

“Even if I did, he wouldn’t answer me.” Connor was still looking away.

“He doesn’t trust you to keep his secrets?” Hank pressed.

“No…” Connor hesitated. “It’s more like, he doesn’t think it’s worth his time to explain things like this to me. Talking about his businesses with me would be like – would be like you coming home to Sumo and talking him through your cases.”

Hank frowned. “But I do talk to Sumo about my work. Sometimes, my biggest breakthroughs have come from going over the case with him while we’re watching TV.”

And as he watched, Connor’s face seemed to collapse in on itself, the careful façade crumbling. “Oh.” He turned his body completely away from Hank, his shoulders turning rigid and defensive. “Right.” He picked up a cookie cutter, only to let it fall down again immediately; the sound of it jangling against the others rang out loud in the silence between them.

Hank didn’t know what to say. Several thoughts were crowding at the front of his mind. One of them was, _well, you chose to marry the guy_. Another was, _but I guess his billions make up for him being an asshole_. 

But the most insistent thought was, _god, you must be so fucking lonely_.

He hadn’t told anyone he was meeting Connor this afternoon, hadn’t told Ben, and had definitely not told Fowler. Maybe it was because he knew that he wouldn’t necessarily be bringing any new and vital evidence back to the station. This was only their third meeting, only his third real conversation with Connor but Hank had already come to realise that this – this connection between them - existed as much for Connor’s sake as it did for Hank’s.

“You want the rest?” He held out the last quarter of the pretzel.

Connor sniffed. “Yeah, thanks.” The paper crinkled as he took it from Hank’s hand. “You’re right; it’s really good.”

The old couple from before were slowly moving closer again, but Hank and Connor stayed where they were. There was no need now for hushed voices and far corners. They were just two guys right now, two guys sharing a pretzel and looking at Christmas crap together. Hank knew this wasn’t strictly part of his police work, but he wanted to give that to Connor, even if it was just for one hour.


	5. A purpose of his own

The two of them were again idling aimlessly in the food court when Connor’s phone rang. There was no reason for them to stay like this; they had already gone over what they knew about the case, had shared theories with each other. Now, they were just standing next to each other, glancing back and forth, their eyes sometimes meeting in the space between them.

But when the ring tone went off, Connor changed at once, his whole body stilling as he fished the phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

“I have to take this.”

Hank turned his body to the side. He decided to pull out his own phone, making a show of giving Connor his privacy while still being able to hear everything. 

“Yes, Elijah?”

Hank could swear that his ears literally pricked up, like a hound picking up a scent.

“Oh, just doing some shopping.”

Holding his phone closer to his face to conceal his smirk, Hank doubted if Connor had ever done any shopping in a place like this.

“Yes, but you said—Tonight?”

Hank chanced a look at Connor. His eyes were still, his body upright and rigid. And his voice was doing that inhuman thing again – perfectly modulated but ultimately off-putting. It was like the person that Hank had been walking around with for the last hour had gone, and left this answering machine behind in his place.

“Of course. Goodbye, Elijah.”

He kept scrolling through his unread e-mails, waiting for Connor to speak.

“That was my husband.”

“Yeah?”

“I thought I had the rest of the day to—” He cut himself off. “We’re going out tonight.”

“Well…” Something twitched in Hank’s cheek. “Have fun,” he said drily. He checked the time on his phone before dropping it back into his pocket. It was time to get home to Sumo, anyway.

“What do you think I should do?”

Hank looked back at him. “Do? You mean, about tonight?”

Connor nodded.

“Connor…” Hank scratched his beard as he thought. “If you don’t want to go then don’t go. What’s Kamski gonna do? Cut your allowance?”

Connor shook his head, his eyes fixed as they looked into Hank’s. “No, I’m definitely going. A lot of Elijah’s friends are going to be there, I bet.” He inclined his head to the side, an innocent look with an edge of steel. “Maybe some of them will know about Ichor.”

“W-wait a minute.” Hank moved until they were facing each other completely, a stand-off in the middle of Durban mall. “You wanna – what? _Investigate_ your own husband?”

“It’s not investigating. It’s just…asking around.”

“That’s investigating!” 

Hank’s voice almost seemed to echo against the shuttered stores. Connor checked to see if anyone noticed before looking back at Hank. His gaze was still steady, but Hank thought he could see a muscle vibrating at the corner of one eye.

“I’m- I’m sorry, Connor.” He looked away. “But this shit isn’t for amateurs. People have _died_.”

“Hank.” 

It stopped him completely; the first time he heard that voice speak his name. He hadn’t consciously noticed how Connor never used his name, but some part of him must have done. Now, this one word seemed to push itself into somewhere in Hank’s middle, unbalancing him with the warmth it brought with it.

“I’ll be careful,” Connor continued, “I won’t sit them down on a metal chair and shine a light into their eyes—”

“We don’t really do that,” Hank muttered.

“—I’ll just be, you know, talking. Elijah doesn’t really take much notice of me at these things as long as I’m behaving myself. And these kind of people really like talking about how they’re spending their money: what kind of vacation they’ve just been on, what kind of security system they’ve bought, what kind of car they’re driving,” he raised one eyebrow at Hank, “what sort of treatments they’re getting…”

“And you don’t think anyone’s going to get suspicious when you start pressing them on it? What are you gonna do? Ask if they happen to have a list of treatments from Ichor on them? And maybe a handy price list?”

“Why not?”

“Connor…”

“Look, they’re going to be relaxed. They’ll be among – well, not their friends – but their equals. They’ll have no reason to suspect that Elijah Kamski’s husband is gathering information on them.”

Hank groaned. He had to admit that there was some reason to what Connor was saying. He bent his head, letting his hair fall over his cheeks, shielding his face. “I suppose I can’t stop you.”

“No, you can’t.”

“But…” Hank looked up again. “I could always arrest you.”

Connor scoffed. “On what charge?”

Hank reached out, plucked the empty pretzel wrapper from Connor’s hand, and dropped it on the floor between them. He pointed at it. “Littering.”

“You did that!” Connor answered, his mouth open in something between a mock outrage and a huge grin.

“Well, it’s your word against mine.” Hank squared his shoulders, trying to imitate the brash, young cop he had once been. “And I’m the one with the badge.”

“A crooked cop, eh?” Connor was still smiling, his crinkled eyes looking up at Hank from beneath his brow.

“Only for a good cause,” Hank replied, his teasing tone becoming much more earnest than he meant it to be.

Connor’s gaze softened into something indefinable as he looked at Hank. He sighed. “You don’t have to worry about me. I know how to act around these people.”

_But I do fucking worry about you_ , Hank thought, _I don’t know why, but I do_.

Connor checked the time on his phone. “I really have to go now.”

Hank made a small attempt at a nod. He watched as Connor lingered for just a moment, his eyes seeming to travel over Hank’s face before turning around, his shoes squeaking on the wet floor of the mall, and walking away. Hank watched him go before bending down, picking up the crumbled paper, and then going in search of a trash can.

* * *

Connor took the last three steps of the stairs in one jump, skidding into the hall where he saw Chloe holding his coat.

“He’s waiting for you,” she said as he took it from her and pulled it on, his left arm flailing to find the sleeve.

“Have a nice night,” Chloe said and closed the door behind him, leaving Connor in the darkening dusk with the only light coming from the activated car idling in the drive. He could see Elijah’s silhouette, a dark cut-out illuminated by the car’s entertainment screen.

One of Connor’s feet slid on the icy path leading down to the car but he kept going forward by sheer willpower, not stopping until he pushed the button to slide the doors open and hopped in next to Elijah.

Elijah didn’t look at him, didn’t say a thing. He simply made a few swipes on his phone and Connor heard the door lock next to him. The screen in front of them went through a few quick processes before the car set into motion and the choice of entertainment returned.

Connor waited, keeping his eyes front. Any moment. It could happen any moment between now and when the car pulled up at the party. Connor often wondered if Elijah planned the wait and the uncertainty as part of his punishment, or if he never even considered what effects his actions had on Connor. 

“I don’t like being late.”

And there it was, a bit ahead of schedule. They hadn’t even reached midtown, yet. Usually, Connor had to stew in the tension for longer.

“I know and I’m sorry, Elijah. I just couldn’t find the tie that goes so well with this suit.” He pushed his shoulders back, displaying his chest and the navy tie with the thin burgundy stripes. “And I wanted to look good for you.”

He could see Elijah’s mouth twist in the blue light coming from the screen in front of them, and he knew this wasn’t done yet.

“Don’t blame the tie; you were late getting home.”

Connor ground his teeth together, knowing that what he wanted to reply wasn’t necessarily the best thing to say to Elijah right now. Maybe he could soften it… “You did say I was on my own today, Elijah.”

“And then my plans changed.” He sighed. “I don’t make many demands on you, Connor, but I do expect you to accompany me when I ask.”

“Of course.” Connor made himself nod.

The silence returned, but Connor was sure this wasn’t done yet. He waited for the next jab.

“Chloe said that you didn’t have anything with you when you came home - no bags or boxes.”

He closed his eyes briefly. He should have stopped in at one of the usual shops on his way home, should have bought something expensive to chuck into the back of his closet with the rest of it. But he had stayed too long with Hank. He had known it at the time, had known that every passing minute he lingered with the other man had made this situation he was in right now ever more probable. But he had still stayed as long as he possibly could. “That’s right.”

“You said you were shopping.”

Connor made his voice sound cheerful. “You know how it is; you don’t always find something worth buying.”

“A new experience for you, I’m sure.”

Back to silence but Elijah’s irritation was still there, almost a physical being taking up as much space as either of them. Connor could feel it pressing at his side, insisting to be noticed, insisting to be placated with sweet words and submissive apologies. He knew the routine by now. 

But right now, Connor didn’t feel like playing his part. Maybe it was because he actually had a purpose for tonight’s party, other than being perfectly pleasant. Maybe it was because he felt like smiling every time he thought about Hank and the short time they had spent together this afternoon. No matter what it was, Connor didn’t want to give up any more room in his mind for Elijah.

The view outside his window stopped moving and the screen changed to a simple _Destination reached_. As the door slid open, Connor waited for Elijah to either give him any final orders or to simply exit the car, expecting Connor to follow along. It was the latter, and Connor had barely any time to arrange his face before Elijah’s arm went under his and he was taken to meet the first of Elijah’s friends.

* * *

Sumo had been walked, Sumo had been fed, and now Hank was ready to bounce off the fucking walls. 

The TV was on, some basketball game going on in the background, but Hank couldn’t for the life of him say who were playing or what the score was. It had become a blur of colours and sound as he sat down and got up from the couch again, wandering aimlessly from the kitchen cabinet above the sink, to Sumo’s blanket, and then back to the couch again.

He was back in the kitchen now, staring at that cabinet. It would be so easy. He had done it before when his mind was whirling like this. It wouldn’t take more than two or three fingers of the stuff, quickly downed, and the world would start to slow down, would move away from him. It was all too close to him now - that was the problem.

He opened the cabinet and took out the bottle. He weighed it in his hand, watching how the amber liquid sloshed up against the glass, how it clung to it so differently from just plain water. The sounds from the TV changed behind him. He was vaguely aware of a commercial break starting, some excitable voice shrieking about the low, low price of second-hand automated cars. 

It would only be one glass. He could control himself now. It wouldn’t be like how it had been last year around this time, when he had disappeared into the bottle, only resurfacing when Jeffrey had come looking for him after New Year’s. He was better now that he knew what started him off. He could manage it.

Hank put the bottle down on the counter. Maybe he should go into the station, offer one of the night crew the opportunity to finish early, to get home before their families go to bed. He could stay all night at the station. There would be distractions at the station.

How long did these people party, anyway?

He checked his phone again. It still wasn’t muted, and the screen was still clear of any new messages. 

A corner of the bottle’s label was coming loose. Hank picked at it. Why hadn’t he asked Connor where they were going? But even if he had known, then what? Connor would have texted him to save him from these blood-thirsty billionaires, and he would have smashed through the door and swung Connor into his arms before getting them both out, guns blazing? Hank’s face scrunched up in disgust at how much this ridiculous fantasy still appealed to him.

He didn’t put the bottle back in the cabinet, but he did remove himself from the kitchen, slumping down on the couch and trying to focus on whatever was happening on the TV. Sumo had woken up from his post-dinner nap and ambled over to place his heavy head on Hank’s thigh, his drooping eyes looking up at him.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” Hank asked as always.

Sumo made no reply. Perhaps because the answer was self-evident.

Hank pulled gently on one big, soft ear. “Yeah, you’re a good boy.”

* * *

The text arrived when Hank had finally convinced himself to crawl into bed. He was standing in the middle of his bedroom, his worn pair of jeans hanging from one hand and the phone in the other.

(00:58 AM) _Are you awake?_

Something tight loosened in Hank’s middle.

(00:59 AM) yeah I’m here

(00:59 AM) _I’m sending you a picture_  
(00:59 AM) _Just a minute_

Hank let the jeans fall somewhere on the floor and sat down on the bed, still wearing his socks. As he waited, he imagined several versions of the sort of picture Connor would be sending him. This was obviously something to do with the case, Hank told himself, but the fact that he was sitting half-naked on his bed late at night and waiting for a man to text him a pic, did bring out some sort of Pavlovian response in Hank. He shifted where he sat, readjusting his boxers.

An empty square appeared on his text screen. Hank tapped it to download the picture.

(01:01 AM) _Did you get it?_

He enlarged the picture and zoomed in. It was a list of names, written in a neat hand on the back of what looked to be the menu from a fancy restaurant. Even in this dimly lit phone pic, Hank could see the thickness of the paper and the embossed logo. It was lying on what looked to be a bathroom counter in dark grey marble.

(01:02 AM) you still at the party?

(01:02 AM) _The picture’s from the restaurant_  
(01:02 AM) _Couldn’t figure out a way to smuggle out the list_  
(01:03 AM) _But wanted to get the whole thing down asap before leaving_

(01:04 AM) and what am I looking at

(01:04 AM) _List of people who told me how happy they were with Ichor_  
(01:05 AM) _And one of them, Veronika, has promised to try to get me a password_

Hank’s mind reeled. They had been trying to figure out how Ichor grew its circle of customers. There was no online presence to speak of, no business address, all of which made sense, of course, when it came to organised organ trading. All they had so far was a bank account in the Cayman Islands which had deposited the money into Lena’s and Matt’s accounts, a note referencing ‘Ichor’ in Lena’s calendar, and witnesses claiming that Zlatko was giving exclusive demonstrations in the back rooms of the Europa club.

(01:06 AM) password? there’s a website?

A minute went by. Then another. The back of the phone grew warm and wet in the palm of Hank’s hand. The screen went into a standby black before he shook it back into life. Still no message. He put down the phone and made a round of the house, checking that the door was locked and looking in on Sumo as he slept soundly. He made sure not to hurry but when he came back, the phone screen was still empty.

(01:15 AM) Connor?

* * *

The pillows on Connor’s bed were, of course, expensive. And each of them was covered in a case made from 100% Egyptian cotton, so thick and so tightly woven that you would be forgiven for thinking that you could safely view a solar eclipse through it.

And yet, Connor felt sure that Chloe would notice it if the screen lit up, even if he had hastily tucked the phone under a pillow when he heard her coming to his door.

He stood by his bed, making sure that his gaze was on her and not the pillow.

“Yes?”

“I saw the light was on.”

“Yes.” Connor wanted to roll his eyes but he repressed it. “I’m still up.”

“Well,” Chloe smiled in a way that was meant to be sweet, “I just wanted to check.”

She didn’t move from where she stood with one hand on the door handle and her body framed by the dark hallway behind her.

“Was there anything else? Does Elijah want me?”

“He hasn’t said anything to me.” She kept standing there. Connor could feel his eyes flickering, but he still didn’t look at the pillow. Why wouldn’t she leave? Hank had called her a miniature Rottweiler but right now she reminded Connor more of cat, slinking around, silent but always watching, only loyal to the one who feeds her. He felt like pulling her tail.

“Chloe,” he started, “I don’t appreciate you spying on me.”

“Spying?”

“Telling Elijah when I leave the house and when I come home, telling him what I’ve got with me when I do.”

“I wouldn’t call that spying. I work for Elijah. I take care of his affairs for him.”

“And I’m part of those affairs? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Why are you getting upset? It’s not like you’ve got something to hide.”

“I’m not--” Connor pressed his lips together. He had barely raised his voice but at the same time, he realised that anything above a placid acceptance would be characterized as ‘upset’ in this house. “Are you going to tell him about this conversation, too?”

“I might. If he asks me about you.”

“And what will you say?”

Her eyes focused in on him, the blue colour turning intent. “That for some unknown reason, you prefer going unnoticed.”

Connor breathed in slowly. “When you say it like that, it sounds suspicious.”

“Does it?” She smiled. “That wasn’t my intention, I’m sure.”

If she wasn’t such a thorn in his side, Connor might almost be impressed. Chloe did this perfectly. They were similar in a way, both living their lives as satellites in Elijah’s orbit, but she had found some agency, some independence in the role that life had given her. Connor still felt like he was floundering, still so dependent on other people’s whims and wishes.

“Goodnight, Chloe.”

“Goodnight.” She gave him one last, lingering look and then shut the door with a soft click.

He listened for her steps before diving under the pillow and pulling out his phone. 

(01:15 AM) _Connor?_

He turned off the lights and climbed into bed, holding his phone under the covers, the light of the screen illuminating his chest.

* * *

(01:16 AM) _I’m here_

Hank closed his eyes briefly. Fuck, that had felt like an eternity.

(01:16 AM) you alright?

(01:17 AM) _Just the Rottweiler making her rounds before lights out_

He huffed a laugh, his body instantly relaxing now that Connor was back.

(01:17 AM) _And yeah there’s a website._  
(01:17 AM) _Veronika’s going to get me the address as well_  
(01:18 AM) _She says it’s a bit weird_

It had to be, Hank thought, if our IT guys hadn’t found it yet.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he worked out what he wanted to say. In the end, it took very few words.

(01:19 AM) thank you Connor

(01:19 AM) _Nothing wrong with a bit of investigation, then?_

(01:20 AM) yeah if you’re a cop. 

They had returned to ping-ponging messages, but now Connor grew silent again. Hank read over his last text as he waited, hoping Connor didn’t take it as a serious telling-off. He had to know how grateful Hank felt right now. Then Hank’s phone started beeping again.

(01:22 AM) _I wanted to be a cop_  
(01:22 AM) _wanted a job like yours_  
(01:22 AM) _even went to college for it_  
(01:22 AM) _studied criminal justice_

Hank blinked as he read through the texts coming at him like this, one after the other. It was like they had burst out of Connor after a long time of being kept down, the pressure demanding a release.

(01:23 AM) seriously?

Hank wrote and deleted the next text four times. He finally pressed ‘send’, figuring that Connor had started this for a reason.

(01:24 AM) what happened?

(01:25 AM) _I got married_  
(01:25 AM) _It’s late. I’m going now_  
(01:25 AM) _Goodnight_

Hank could swear that Connor’s departure left a physical mark on his phone, the screen growing a little duller, the metal casing feeling blunt and heavy in his hand. There had been no gradual come-down, just this sudden departure.

Even if Connor was already gone, Hank couldn’t stop himself from texting back the first thing that came to mind.

(01:28 AM) that makes no fucking sense Connor

* * *

The phone lit up just as Connor was about to shut the lid on the box at the back of his closet. He stopped in his movements and squinted down at the screen. He didn’t pick up the phone, knowing that if he did, he would likely not put it down again. He read Hank’s text like this, kneeling on the floor, hunched over, his hands held feebly in front of his chest.

No, Connor thought, none of this makes sense now. But it did, at the time.


	6. Not in our stars

It had been quiet for days now. Hank’s last text to him was still sitting on the lock screen when Connor dug out his phone. He quickly swiped it away, not wanting to think too long about why he had been so open with Hank. It was probably because it had been the middle of the night. The darkness and the quietness had a way of cocooning you, of making you think that it’s safe to be honest.

He sat for a moment, weighing the phone in his hand. Veronika was still full of promises and nothing else. She was just _so_ busy, you know? The password to Ichor was still hovering somewhere outside of Connor’s influence. He had nothing new to offer Hank, no theories or leads. 

He had no reason to text him.

With a barely repressed sigh, Connor put the phone back and rearranged his closet to how it was. 

Connor milled back and forth in his room. He needed to get away from the house, even if it was just for a few hours. 

Still tying his scarf around his neck, Connor shut the front door behind him, pulling the wool tight against his throat as he hurried down the walkway. The air felt lighter out here. Connor wanted to swallow big gulps of it. 

He arranged for a cab to pick him up at the nearest main road, swiping and tapping on his phone as he went. He wanted to walk for a little while longer. Letting his head fall back as he walked, he looked up. The clouds above seemed heavy and grey. It looked like snow again. It would cover all the muddy slush and give a new coat to the icy, compacted drifts. Connor scoffed internally as he went; it might be a _wonderful_ , white Christmas after all.

The cab was sitting there in a standby position when Connor turned onto the road, the strip of pale, blue light along its top the only indication that it was waiting for a customer. He accepted the ride and the doors slid open. Once inside, he sat back for a moment, his shoulders falling. Where was he even planning to go?

He let his thumb fall down over the screen on his phone, scrolling through the cab’s popular destinations in the Detroit area. He wanted to be where people are. His thumb skimmed against the screen and made a choice. Connor looked down at it. A park. He activated the choice and listened to the electric motor come alive into a low hum. The car pulled away from the curb.

* * *

Riverside Park wasn’t as busy as he had hoped. The threatening clouds and the dropping temperature seemed to be keeping people inside, even if it was close to lunchtime. Connor decided to walk along the river, his hand idly slapping against the bars of the fence, listening to how the metallic echo sounded as it outpaced him.

A woman ran by him, covered head to toe in thick lycra, her ponytail swinging a consistent beat behind her. Connor kept his eyes fixed on that hypnotic movement until she was just a black and blue blur farther down the river.

“Hey.”

Connor almost didn’t want to acknowledge that one word. He had lived in Detroit all his life and knew that 99% of the time when people tried to get his attention in public, they wanted something from him. But despite himself, Connor’s gaze was pulled to the side, to the sight of a man sitting on a bench under a tree. 

Connor stopped walking. If he believed in fate, this would be another notch on its scoreboard.

“Hello, Hank.”

Hank stood up. Connor didn’t know why but the sheer size of the man always seemed to surprise him. Even more so when it was slowly revealed like this, as Hank straightened up to his full height, filling out the breadth of his coat with a deep breath. God, he was big.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Hank said, his gaze seeming to roam up and down Connor, “I coulda sworn Detroit was a bigger city than that.”

Connor turned to face him completely. “Maybe I followed you here.”

Hank laughed a breathy laugh. “That would take some doing, kid. Perhaps you should have become a cop, after all.” As soon as the words were out his mouth, it pulled into a painful-looking wince, Hank obviously wanting to pull them back immediately.

Connor allowed it to pass unnoticed. “What are you doing here?”

“Avoiding a lunch meeting. They’re discussing the Mayor’s Christmas party and who’s gonna be making up the DPD delegation this year.” Hank’s mouth crooked into a smile. “And that’s when I remembered something very urgent I had to do.”

“Like sitting on this bench in the freezing cold?”

“Better than eating icy deli sandwiches and faking an interest in some asshole’s city-wide publicity push.”

Connor ducked his head to hide his smile, which felt like it would crack open his cheeks if he let it. It had only been a few days since he last spoke to Hank, but he understood now how much he had missed this. There was an easiness to being with Hank. Hank didn’t offer little snide asides or passive-aggressive digs. He spoke plainly and this made Connor want to speak plainly, too. The tightness that he always carried around with him loosened up when he was with Hank.

He gestured aimlessly at the riverfront. “You want to walk for a bit?”

Hank eyed him for a moment. “Yeah, sure,” he said slowly, “too cold to be standing still anyway.”

They fell into step alongside each other, setting out in an easy pace. 

Hank was the first to speak after a while. “So…” he cleared his throat. “you come here often? To the park, I mean.”

Connor smiled. “That sounds like a cheesy pick-up line.”

“How do you know it’s not?” 

He felt the flush over his cheeks and hoped it could be mistaken as a result of the frost. He cast a quick look at Hank, “Well, in that case, I’ve always been warned against talking to strangers.”

“I would hardly call us strangers, Connor,” Hank said in a deep voice, his throat seeming to caress his name.

He looked away, that flush growing deeper. Did he know, Connor thought, did he know how that voice sounded to other people? Did he know the effect it had on Connor, every time it grew deep and growly like that? Was it only a happy coincidence of puberty or was it a conscious choice to disorient Connor like this every time he used it?

“What would you call us, then?”

Hank stopped walking, leaving Connor to walk a couple of steps alone before he also stopped and turned around to where Hank was standing. He was looking at him, his lips softly open and his eyes thoughtful.

Hank breathed in and let the air out slowly in a cloud of vapour as he contemplated Connor. “I don’t know,” he finally said.

By the time that Hank’s breath had completely dissolved into the frosty air, something unspoken had passed between them – like a change in the wind. 

“It’s probably not a good idea to be talking like this,” Connor said, “in public, I mean.” He looked around them at the mostly empty park. “Anyone could see.”

“I’ve got my car nearby,” Hank gestured behind him with his thumb.

“Yeah,” Connor said, “yeah, let’s go to your car.”

They walked close together along the small path leading away from the park, hands deep in their pockets and shoulders bumping once, then twice.

“Is that your car?” Connor spotted it from a distance, and he didn’t really need to be told that Hank would be the kind of person to hold on to an old manual like that one.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Hank unlocked the door to the driver’s seat and got in before reaching over and unlocking the other door.

Connor got in, pushing an empty paper cup away from the seat as he sat down. “Don’t you know how unsafe these are? The automated ones--”

“The automated ones are boring,” Hank interrupted him. “There’s nothing to them: no challenge, no sound, no smell--”

“—no brain matter splattered across the windscreen,” Connor added.

Hank shrugged. “I’ve survived this far. And anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry about; I’m not driving you anywhere in this so-called death-trap.”

Hank’s declaration made them both go silent. Connor waited for Hank to pick up where they had left off days earlier. He probably wanted to ask him about the website and Veronika’s password. Or he would return to the fifth of November and what Connor was doing that night. Maybe it would just be a general chat about the progress of the case.

“You doin’ all right?” Hank’s voice was soft in this enclosed space.

“What?”

“Kamski doesn’t suspect, right? About your, you know, investigating?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He hasn’t changed how he acts around you?”

“No, he’s pretty much as he’s always been.” Connor rolled his eyes. “Just as _charming_ as ever.” He looked over at Hank, expecting him to join in on his mocking of Elijah. But Hank looked at him straight-on, his face as serious as the frost outside the car.

“Can I ask you a question?” Hank’s gaze never wavered from Connor’s face.

“About Elijah?”

“About you.”

“Oh.” Something bright fizzled down his back despite Hank’s unflinching tone of voice. “Yeah, sure.”

“I don’t know…” Hank hesitated, drawing out his words, “I mean-- I don’t want you disappearing on me again.”

Connor looked away. He knew what this was about.

“Why did you marry a guy like that?” Hank finally said it quickly and to the point. “I mean, I know he has money and he’s a good-looking guy in a cold sort of way, I guess but the whole package? At best, the guy’s just a selfish asshole. At worst, he’s complicit in several murders.”

Connor looked out of the windscreen. In the distance, that female runner was passing by them again. “You act like I knew all of that at the time.”

“But someone like you,” Hank paused, letting the statement hang in the air between them, “you must have had options.”

“I didn’t think so at the time. Amanda made sure I didn’t.”

“Amanda?”

“The woman who fostered me.”

“Oh.” Hank’s voice had grown quieter, his shoulders stiff. Connor wasn’t surprised; he had seen this reaction in a lot of other people whenever he mentioned the F-word.

“I was very young when she took me in,” he continued, undaunted, “I can’t remember anything before Amanda.”

Hank shifted in his seat. “But she was good to you, right?”

Connor looked back at Hank with a sad, little smile. _Of course_ , he thought, Hank must have mostly seen the worst side of the foster system. “She took care of me. Fed me, clothed me, urged me to do well in school, praised me when I did.” Connor’s gaze turned unfocused, turned inwards. “But I don’t think she ever really cared for me, let alone loved me.” Connor’s body was still sitting in the car next to Hank, but he felt like he was floating somewhere else, in an abstract place formed only by his memories. “I was her project, you see. She was going to prove to everyone that she could take a child, an unwanted, unloved child and turn him into a success. Make him the best. Keep pushing him until he was.”

“Fuckin’ hell…” Hank’s head fell back into the headrest with a muted thump. “And what if you weren’t the best?”

“She never hit me,” Connor threw back.

“I never said that she did, but there are other ways, Connor, other ways of making sure a child never strays from the assigned path.” 

Connor could feel a muscle in his cheek twitch. Oh yes, he knew that too well. “I wasn’t a child when I married Elijah, though.”

“Was that part of Amanda’s plans for you, too? Marry a rich man and you’ll be the best? Kind of a 1950s approach, don’t you think?”

Connor sighed, settling into the explanation. “Amanda didn’t like me studying criminal justice. Th-that was my first major choice that she hadn’t directed me towards. She wanted me to be a politician or a lawyer, someone with a chance for public glory and influence. A doctor would have been fine with Amanda, too, if I’d wound up as a highly-paid surgeon. But a cop?” Connor said the word with somebody else’s disdain. “Even a criminal investigator wasn’t enough for Amanda. And so she refused to pay for my college - wouldn’t even lend me the money when I asked.”

“But she would have paid, if you’d chosen something approved by her?”

“Yes.”

“Shit,” Hank said, shaking his head.

“But,” Connor continued, his voice growing quiet, “then Elijah offered to pay.”

Even in the dusk of the car, he could see realization dawn in Hank’s eyes. “He wanted something in return, didn’t he?” Hank all but whispered.

“He’d seen me at a party, had asked around about me and heard that I was Amanda’s success story. He somehow knew Amanda, and then one day, she invited him over.” Connor looked away. “I guess he liked the way I looked and the way I acted around the two of them.”

Hank scoffed loudly. “I bet he did.”

Connor continued anyway, feeling lighter and lighter just by being allowed to speak all of this out loud. “I met him a couple of times after that, just the two of us. He didn’t talk much about himself but he asked me a lot of questions. I guess I liked that - the attention, I mean. I wasn’t used to others being interested like that. It was only much later that I realised he had been trying to figure me out, to find out what my price was.”

“And that was a fully-paid bachelor’s degree in criminal justice? You’d marry a guy like Kamski for that?”

“I didn’t have a lot of choice—”

“There’s always a choice, Connor. There are student loans, part-time work—”

“Or selling your blood?” Connor shot back at him. “How can you blame me for wanting to take the better odds? A lot of people would have done the same if they’d had the offer.”

“But your gamble didn’t work, did it?” Hank replied with just as much fervour, “Or I’d have met you on your first day working for the DPD and not like,” he gestured vaguely between them, “not like this.”

“Yeah, well, it all turned out to be a lie, didn’t it? I got a letter right before the beginning of what should have been my third semester, asking me for a payment which was late. I went to Elijah about it, but he brushed me off until two weeks into the actual semester. He then needed to be in Switzerland for a conference and wanted me to come along. I could start my third semester after New Year’s, he said, but that just didn’t happen.” Connor’s voice grew quiet. “Elijah kept me occupied with the business of being his husband, no more letters came from the college, my study mates stopped texting me, and suddenly it had been two years since I last stepped into a lecture hall.” 

Connor stopped talking, those foggy years of his life still puzzling him. Even now, when he tried to put it into words, to make sense of it for Hank’s sake, a muted feeling suffused him, like somebody else had been living his life for him back then.

“Fuck, Connor,” Hank was staring at him, “he tricked you; the asshole fucking tricked you.”

“Yeah,” Connor said, resigned to this fact a long time ago, “yeah, he did.”

“We’re going to get him,” Hank said with absolute certainty, “you and me, Connor, we’re going to get him for what he did to you, and for what he did to Lena and Matt and all the others who traded their life for his money. Him and Zlatko and all the other assholes in Ichor, we’re going to stop them.”

 _And then what will happen to me?_ The thought muscled its way forward even as he nodded at what Hank was saying. If Elijah went away, Connor would lose his home and his occupation all at once, and he would have nothing to show for these last years as Elijah’s husband: no education, no skills, and no friends. Connor knew it would be like a complete free fall; exhilarating and boundless at first, but soon enough he would hit the ground and hit it hard.

“And when all this is done,” Hank said, his voice turning softer, “maybe you’d make detective, after all.”

“Yeah?”

Hank nodded. “I think you’d be a good one.”

_No, it’s too late. I wasted too much time._

“Thank you,” Connor said.

Hank shifted in his seat, the old springs whining beneath his weight. He pushed his hair behind one ear, obviously uncomfortable. “So…back when you accepted Kamski’s offer of marriage, there wasn’t anyone…” He hesitated, licking his lips.

“What?” Connor turned more towards him.

“I mean, did you leave behind a stream of broken-hearted boyfriends?”

“Oh.” Now it was Connor’s turn to lick his lips. “No. I mean, there were some high school flings but nothing serious. I guess that’s why I found it so easy to accept Elijah; I didn’t really take the whole love thing seriously.”

“You were young,” Hank replied in a manner of explanation.

“And stupid,” Connor shot back, the bitterness creeping into his voice.

“How about now?” Hank spoke the words with quiet intent.

Connor looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “Am I still stupid now?”

“You’re not fucking stupid, Connor,” Hank shook his head, as if the very idea was ridiculous to him, “I mean, how you do you feel about, you know, the whole love thing now?”

And there it was again. Some charge in the air between them, turning even this beat-up old car into a dangerous place to be for Connor. Because what he wanted most of all was to reach out, to touch Hank’s hand, to look into those sad, blue eyes, and to tell him how many times in these last couple of weeks, Connor had found himself thinking about love.

But what he actually said was, “I don’t know.” He blew out an irritated breath, “I don’t love Elijah, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t think I ever did.”

Hank looked away, his eyes staring blindly out of the car. “Right,” he said, “of course.”

Connor allowed himself to study him for a moment. “How about you,” he said, “how’s this love thing working out for you?”

* * *

Hank had never considered himself a romantic man. He had found life to be much too real for all of that.

But sitting in this chilly car with the whole of Detroit laid out in front of him, grey and unremarkable, he suddenly found himself counting the freckles on Connor’s cheek. 

They weren’t sitting any closer than they had in the public library, and they had spent much less time talking than they had in that mall on the edge of town. But there was something about the enclosed and familiar safety of being alone together in Hank’s own car that suddenly brought Connor into glorious Technicolor vision.

He wanted to trace his finger over them, to feel if they were slightly raised from the surrounding skin. He wanted to link them up, to create constellations, to lie beneath a night sky full of them. 

Hank wanted to read his future in those freckles.

But he was not a romantic man; he had to keep telling himself that.

“Love?” he said, “Nah, I’m too old for that now.”


	7. Lying is dirty work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Thank you for leaving me comments; I've been reading all of them to keep my spirits up while working on this chapter.

That same night after Connor and Hank had sat in Hank’s car and had switched between telling the truth and telling lies to one another, Veronika actually came through.

Hank got a flurry of texts from Connor late that night, most of them looking like some sort of code.

He texted back:

(11:03 PM) is that the Ichor website?

(11:04 PM) _Yes. And the second part is the password_

Hank copy-pasted the address into his browser. A cream-coloured page with an empty box sitting in the middle of it appeared. Hank tapped to activate the box and the keyboard popped up at the bottom off his screen. He returned to his message app.

(11:06 PM) is it safe?

(11:07 PM) _I think so_  
(11:07 PM) _I have no reason to distrust Veronika_  
(11:08 PM) _She’s not that kind of person_

Hank went back to the innocuous-looking page and looked at the blinking cursor while he pondered.

(11:09 PM) I’m gonna shoot this over to IT  
(11:09 PM) let them make the first advance  
(11:10 PM) not sure my phone could handle any kinda attack right now

(11:11 PM) _If you think that’s best_

Hank quickly copied all the relevant information into an e-mail and sent it off to the main person in IT, wondering if there was anyone in the department at this time of night. He had never really bothered to find out before; nothing had ever felt as urgent before.

He had just pressed ‘send’ when another text popped up on his screen.

(11:17 PM) _Is it Veronika you don’t trust?_  
(11:17 PM) _Or me?_

Hank’s jaw tensed and shifted as he looked down at that second text. “Fuck,” he muttered as he shook his head. How could Connor even think to ask that?

(11:18 PM) been a cop for too long  
(11:19 PM) learnt to be careful the hard way  
(11:19 PM) nothing to do with you

Hank’s eyes never left the screen as he waited.

(11:20 PM) _Okay_

Hank’s fingers moved quickly, almost outpacing what he was trying to say.

(11:21 PM) thank you Connor  
(11:21 PM) for the info  
(11:21 PM) you did good kid

(11:21 PM) _Thank you, Hank_  
(11:21 PM) _Goodnight_

Hank shut off the TV which had been droning on in the background and stood up from the couch. Sumo staggered up on sleepy legs as well, knowing full well that it was time for his last round of the garden for the night.

After opening the backdoor, Hank leaned against the door frame and watched Sumo as he tried to find the perfect place to lift a leg against. His phone was still sitting in his loose fist and he flipped it over and over, watching the screen light up and go dark again and again, all the while thinking that words were a poor way of saying what you wanted to say.

* * *

After checking in with IT the next day and being assured that they were working on a report of whatever they found on and behind Ichor’s website, Hank settled into his usual routine of switching between his desk and the office break room. He was just finishing a cup of coffee in the latter when Ben came through and grabbed him, pulling him outside to the car while talking about a body found in one of the more exclusive restaurants downtown. It was now common courtesy at the station to pass any bodies with no obvious cause of death – like a bullet to the chest or a blow to the head - on to Hank and Ben, in case it turned out to be another drained corpse, Ichor-style.

They settled into the car and Ben handed over the tablet to Hank. He opened up the report and started reading.

The first thing that caught his attention was the name of the restaurant. It had a familiar sound, though Hank was sure that he had never paid those kinds of prices for those kinds of portions. He filed it away and kept scrolling down the list of information, his eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary. Body found in men’s toilets, young, white, male, brown hair, brown eyes—

And that was when his scattered thoughts finally merged together and remembered the dimly lit picture of a restaurant’s menu lying on a marble counter-top.

He threw the tablet to one side, almost hitting Ben in the thigh as he did. 

“Hey, watch it!” Ben made a grab for the tablet before it hit the floor of the car.

Hank ignored him as he raised his hips from the seat, his fingers scrambling for his phone in the pocket of his jeans. As soon as he had the screen lit, he was scrolling back through his messages until he found it, the picture Connor had sent him in the dead of night. 

It was the same restaurant. This couldn’t be a coincidence. 

He tore the tablet back from the Ben.

“Take it easy, Hank!”

He ignored him. Going back to the start of the report, Hank now read every word carefully, hoping to find any clue as to who he would find in the men’s toilets in one of the fanciest restaurants in Detroit.

If he figured out the truth now, he could control himself later.

But there was very little to go on. Not even a word to say whether the body was gray or not.

But no, Hank told himself, even Kamski wouldn’t do that, not to his own husband, wouldn’t drain him and dump him like that. His fingers flexed against the cold sides of the tablet. Because if Connor was murdered, it would get into the press, and that might bring up any connection between Ichor and Kamski that hadn’t been reported on yet. 

Connor couldn’t be dead. It wouldn’t make sense if he was.

Hank sat straighter, his chest heaving against the seatbelt. It felt like a straightjacket. 

His last words to Connor had been so stupid, so useless. He hadn’t really said anything to him. It had all just been _fucking_ noise.

“Why aren’t we there yet?”

Ben gave him a puzzled look. “It’s after five and we’re in midtown. Traffic’s going to be slow.”

“It’s these fucking computer cars.” Hank made an angry gesture at the screen in front of them. It remained a placid blue. “We should have taken my car. We’d have been there by now if I was driving.”

“I told you, my wife—”

“Yeah, yeah, your wife doesn’t like you driving in manual cars,” Hank repeated, a mean, sarcastic tinge to his voice, “is she the boss of you?”

“No, but she’s my wife and I don’t want her to be worried.” Ben spoke the words slowly and clearly, as if he was explaining it to a child. “What’s gotten into you, Hank?”

Hank’s knee jumped up and down, a crooked and hurried rhythm. He couldn’t tell Ben what had gotten into him. Because Ben had warned him about this, about getting too close. It had all started with Hank’s phone number on a slip of paper and now it might end in a restaurant toilet with Hank looking down at the body of somebody he had allowed himself to…

The car rolled to a smooth stop and Hank was out of the door, his long legs reaching the door to the restaurant in three strides. A young woman in a white shirt and perfectly pressed black trousers greeted him, the sad frown between her eyebrows an unusual look for a waiter.

“Where’s the men’s room?” Hank asked her.

“I--” She blinked, her head tilting back to look up at him. “Are you the police?”

“You called us, didn’t you? Now, where’s the body?”

Ben came up behind Hank at the same time that an older man, a manager-looking type, was waving the waiter away and taking her place instead. “Are you here for the pick-up?”

“Pick-up?” Hank frowned.

“The…” The manager shook his hand vaguely behind him, “the person in the bathroom. You are from the morgue, aren’t you? Ideally, we’d like to have the place ready and cleaned in time for our usual opening hours. Will that be possible, do you think?”

Something bilious and sour rose up in the back of Hank’s throat. He was getting ready to spew it over the man in front of him, when he noticed the grey slate with a male-looking figure hanging on the wall next to the cloakroom and headed in that direction. He left Ben behind to show IDs and to explain to this manager how the DPD worked a crime scene.

Unlike the other places where Hank used to drink and sometimes eat, the door to this upscale bathroom didn’t squeak when opened and it didn’t clang shut behind him. Rather, it slowly fell back with a muted thump, leaving Hank alone in the loud silence, the kind of ringing silence that can only be found in a deserted public toilet.

The legs were sticking out from the middle cubicle, one straight, one slightly bended at the knee. At the sight of the scuffed trainers, Hank could already feel the adrenaline leaving his body. There was no Italian leather, no laces that looked like they had been ironed that very morning. 

But he still couldn’t be sure.

Hank stepped closer, one foot one either side of those legs, and he looked down at the body, his heart still beating against his ribs.

It wasn’t Connor.

Hank felt like the biggest asshole in the world. This was a body he was standing over, a young man’s body, sprawled out like this in public, his pants wet with his own piss. This was someone who was going to be missed - mother, father, sister, brother, girlfriend, boyfriend, _any_ friend – and all that Hank could feel right now was an unrelenting relief that it wasn’t Connor.

His mind went over the words again: it isn’t Connor, Connor is safe, you didn’t get him killed, Connor is alive. Hank closed his eyes briefly and allowed himself to breathe for a moment.

When he opened them again, he snapped right back into being a detective. He went through his usual routine of checking the body and its surroundings. The lips were still red – not another drained corpse then – and the body was still warm and malleable.

It was what he found beneath the toilet paper dispenser and what had rolled behind the cistern that made him check the crook of victim’s left arm and sure enough, there were the tell-tale signs that Hank had seen too many times in his career.

“Detective?”

The young waiter was standing behind him, the muted door just closing.

“Yeah?” Hank groaned as he heaved himself back up from where he had been squatting to get a closer look.

“I thought you should know—I mean, it was Mr.—it was my manager who called the police, and I don’t think he told you everything.”

Hank looked at her and saw that same crinkle in her forehead. “You knew him?”

“No, not really. I knew his name.” She looked up into his eyes. “Gabriel Petrescu. He was one of the dishwashers here.”

Hank quickly dug out his phone and made a note. “He got any family?”

“Not here. Steph says that they are all back in Romania.”

Hank nodded. “Thanks.”

He shuffled passed her and opened the door, waiting for her to go first. But she was still looking at those sprawled legs.

“Did you find him?” Hank asked.

She nodded mutely. “How did he die?” she almost whispered.

“That’s really up to the medical examiner to determine,” Hank answered, “but for my money, it looks like red ice, straight into the vein.”

She looked back at him. “I thought you smoked it?”

“Yeah, but if you want the full effect straight-away, nothing beats a needle. Most of the time, though, you end up like this.”

She looked back at the cubicle. “I never knew.”

Hank made no reply but pushed the door more open and gave her a look. She understood and hurried in front of him, her head ducked as she headed towards what Hank assumed was the kitchens.

Ben was still busy placating the manager when Hank returned to them. 

“But I don’t understand,” the manager was saying, “all you have you to do is--”

“The restaurant’s closed for the night,” Hank cut him off, “People from the medical examiner’s office will be arriving within the hour and the scene will have to be closed off and secure at least until tomorrow morning. You’ll have to remain here to receive them and to answer any questions. But you can give your kitchen staff the night off. I’m sure they need it.”

At the last word, Hank turned his back, leaving Ben to hurry after him and the manager standing behind, his mouth still open in surprise. 

And then they were back outside, Hank quickly getting Ben caught up with what he had found inside.

“You take the car,” Hank then said, “I’m going to walk back.”

“Hey, Hank.” Ben grabbed hold of his sleeve. “What’s the matter? You’ve been acting strange since we got this case. You know the vic’ or something?”

“No.” Hank pulled his arm away from Ben’s hold. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” He sighed. “It’s just…it’s gonna be hard… I mean, this close to Christmas, it’s gonna be hard to tell his family.”

“You want me to do it?”

“Yeah, that- that would be good. Thanks, Ben.”

“You’re welcome. Wanna get in the car now?”

A ghost of a smile played over Hank’s features. “No,” he said, “still planning on walking.”

“All right,” Ben said slowly, “just know that I’m sending out an APB if you’re not back at the station within the hour.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Ben.” Hank placed a rough but friendly hand on his shoulder, hoping that it conveyed what he wasn’t able to say.

He waited until he saw Ben get in the car and saw that car turning the corner, before grabbing his phone out of his pocket. His thumb hovered over the texting app before skidding down to the phone app. 

He needed to hear his voice.

The phone felt cold against his ear as he listened to it ringing. And ringing. And ringing.

A couple passed by him on the icy sidewalk, making him step closer to the brick wall. And still the phone was ringing in his ear.

“Come on, come on…” he muttered into the chilly air, leaving behind a steamy breath.

Then the dull beep in his ear opened up into the sound of a voice.

“Yes?”

Even through Hank’s winter coat, he could feel the coarseness of the brick as his shoulders fell back against the wall. “Connor,” he breathed out.

“No, this is Elijah Kamski.” The voice felt like it slithered into Hank’s ear. “His husband.”

Hank reared forwards on his feet, his head dropping to his chest while a million thoughts stormed through his head. The one that emerged at the front was, _is Connor all right?_

Elijah continued, “I think Connor would appreciate it, in fact, I think both of us would appreciate it if these calls were to come to an end.”

“I--” Hank spluttered.

“Connor has nothing to say to you, Lieutenant Anderson, so you might as well stop bothering him.”

Hank finally gathered enough of his thoughts together to say the first thing on his mind, “I’d like to hear Connor tell me this.”

“What, again?” A mirthless laugh. “According to my husband, he’s been doing nothing but, what is the word, _rebuffing_ you ever since you found out his phone number.”

These were lies, every last one of them, but Hank understood. Connor had needed to protect himself and had thrown them up as a shield against Kamski.

“I’m just trying to do my job, Mr. Kamski,” Hank heard how stiff and halting his voice was. He had never been any good as an actor and had always been excused from most undercover work because of it.

“Really? Your job?” The voice was stained with snarky incredulity. “Well, then let’s pretend that’s the truth. I don’t care about your job, Lieutenant, and I don’t care about you. I do care about my husband and the way he’s changed since you started harassing him.” Kamski’s voice grew firm. “Don’t call this number again. Consider this your final warning or I will go to those above you.”

The line went dead, leaving Hank standing alone on the street corner. 

It had so quickly become a part of his everyday life, this thing he shared with Connor, that he had stupidly forgotten how precarious their entire situation was. They had both been balancing on the edge of a volcano, but Hank had only had eyes for Connor and never noticed the drop. 

And now Connor had been the first to fall.

* * *

Connor watched as Elijah ended the call. He was standing in the middle of the mess that Chloe had made. Boxes, unworn shoes, and unwrapped clothes lay strewn across the floor in a sort of make-shift path leading up to the open closet-doors and the open box from where she had heard a sound.

Elijah was sitting on Connor’s bed like it was his own, one leg slung carelessly over the other knee as he pulled the phone from his ear and ended the call. The screen went black.

Chloe had left just a minute earlier, a victorious smirk thrown over her shoulder at Connor before shutting the door behind her. She was sure of getting a reward and a pat on the head for this, like the good dog that she was.

The two of them were alone now. The silence grew large but Connor wasn’t about to make the first lunge. At the moment, a defensive strategy seemed the safer bet.

Elijah turned the phone over in his hand. “This isn’t the one I gave you.”

“No, it’s an old one from…from before.”

Elijah nodded. “I’m surprised this sort of model still works.”

Connor said nothing in return. He shifted his left foot, hearing something crinkle under its weight. But he didn’t look away from Elijah.

“How do you think that old lieutenant found the number to this old phone?”

“I don’t know.” Connor shook his head in a choppy motion. “P-probably looked up some info from my time at college. That was the phone I was using then.”

“And all he wanted to talk about was me, right? That’s what you said?”

“Yes, but I never told him anything, Elijah.” Connor made his voice soft and sweet, the voice of someone who deserved forgiveness. “He kept bothering me but I never said anything about anything. You have to believe me.”

Elijah stood up, a smooth, unbothered movement that betrayed no effort on his part. He walked close to Connor, his pale eyes never leaving his face, taking in every twitch in the calm façade that Connor was presenting.

“You’re my husband, Connor.” His hand pressed down on Connor’s cowlick in a pantomime of affection. “Of course, I believe you.”

Connor felt something cold and hard in the palm of his hand. He looked down at the black screen of his phone.

Elijah stepped back. “Unlock that for me.”

A chill settled at the back of Connor’s neck. His mind leapt forward, trying to go through everything he had shared with Hank through that phone, every call, every text, every picture – a partial history of the two of them. It all blurred together for him. What had they said to each other’s faces and what had they shared in the dark hours of the night when all the rest of the house had turned quiet? Connor couldn’t even differentiate now between what he _had_ told Hank and what he had _wanted_ to tell Hank. 

No matter what could be gleaned from the texts, what could be deduced from the call history, Connor was overcome with the feeling that this phone had come to represent him, Hank, and everything between them. And he wasn’t about to hand all of that over to Elijah.

“No,” he said, “no, I won’t.”

Elijah let his head fall to one side. His lips pursed. “Don’t be an idiot, Connor.”

Connor just shook his head.

Elijah sighed like a man greatly put upon. “You know I can just call someone in here to grab hold of your finger.”

Connor shook his head again. “It’s not fingerprint locked. You’ll need the code. ”

Those pale eyes hardened. “And what part of you do I need to grab hold of to extract that from you?”

Involuntarily, Connor stepped back. Elijah had never hit him before. Connor had been relieved that he had never had to endure that part of an unhappy marriage, but at the same time he had come to realize why Elijah never felt Connor to be worthy of even that most despicable of attentions: Elijah _owned_ Connor, like he owned this house and all the furniture in it. To beat on Connor whenever he displeased him would be like beating a table because you stubbed your toe against it. If you do it once, you curse and move on. If you keep doing it, you simply move the table.

Connor realised that for the first time in their marriage, he had purposely gotten in Elijah’s way. And Elijah was ready to move him back with force if he had to.

And in the blink of an eye, Connor changed tactics, changed his story. He could still save Hank, could still save the investigation into Ichor - if he sacrificed himself.

“Elijah…” Connor let the hand holding the phone fall down to his side in a helpless gesture. “This is embarrassing.” He pressed his lips together. “And I want you to know that it never progressed to anything serious.”

“Go on.”

“I…” Connor looked away, searching for anything to say and finally settled on some version of the truth. “I was attracted to Hank when I first saw him.”

“ _Hank_ ,” Elijah spat out like a bad taste in his mouth.

He continued undeterred. “And I called him at the police station, hoping to meet up with him.”

“And did he? Meet you somewhere?”

“Yes.”

Elijah shook his head. “Obviously. Probably never had anything this beautiful chase after him before.”

“No,” Connor hastened to add, “no, he didn’t care about me like that. He thought I had some valuable information about you. But I just wanted to see him again.”

“I guess there’s no accounting for taste, Connor, but really? I mean, he’s so _old_.” Elijah’s face twisted in disbelief.

“Maybe it was because I was bored, maybe I was lonely,” Connor said, “but something pulled me to him.” He drew in a breath, readying himself to plow through the rest of it, “he gave me his number that day, thinking I would sell you out. But I kept sending him flirty texts instead, calling him up late at night just to hear his voice. It was so silly, like a teenager with a crush,” he finished, his lips growing stiff and uncooperative.

Elijah stood back and studied him. “Did he ever touch you?”

“No. I think he felt sorry for me. Poor, little, rich boy, you know, with nothing better to do than make himself look pathetic in front of the big, strong man. That’s why I don’t want you looking at the phone, Elijah,” Connor said with a submissive tilt to his head, “it’s bad enough that I acted that way in front of a stranger but to go over it again with my husband…it’s just too much.” He looked back up. “Please, Elijah, don’t humiliate me like that.”

“Why did he call you just now?”

Connor’s brain worked quickly now that it was warmed up. “I’d sent him a text earlier, dangling the promise of some inconsequential info, and he was just getting back to me. Like I said, I liked his voice.”

Elijah studied Connor’s face for a moment before reaching out his right hand. “Give me the phone.”

Numbly, Connor let the black square slide into Elijah’s palm. As he looked at it, that palm tilted downwards and the phone hit the oak floor between them with a _crack_ before Elijah’s heel ground down onto it with a _crunch_. Connor could see the glass splintering along its sides.

“There,” Elijah picked it back up and twisted it between his hands, the plastic popping from its metal cage, “that’s all done, then.” He dropped it back to the floor like a ball of crumpled paper. 

Connor was still looking down at what remained of his secret phone when he felt Elijah’s hands on his shoulders. He looked back at him.

“I forgive you, Connor.” Elijah intoned the words like an emperor on his throne.

“Thank you,” Connor murmured, “like I said, I was so stupi--”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Elijah cut him off with an icy tone, “although,” he smoothed his hands down the front of Connor’s shirt, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you would be drawn to a man like that. After all, you never had a father, did you?”

Connor swallowed hard, swallowed down all that he wanted to spit back into Elijah’s face. “No,” he bit out between his teeth.

“I guess that explains it,” Elijah said with a smirk, “and I must remember to do my husbandly duties to keep you sufficiently entertained.”

Connor practically saw the bars being added to his prison. “Yes,” he said.

“You’ll be happy to hear, then,” Elijah continued, not really noticing Connor’s reaction, “that we’ve both been invited to the mayor’s Christmas party on Friday. I think we should go, don’t you?”

Connor nodded.

“It’d be like a date night for the two of us, right? Like the ones we had before we were married.”

Connor couldn’t remember any significant date between the two of them, other than the one where Elijah had first inspected him and found him to be suitable for the role of husband. 

“Yes,” he replied, “how nice.”

“But for now, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to leave the house alone, do you?” Elijah grabbed hold of Connor’s chin, keeping their eyes locked. “You might find yourself going to unsafe places and meeting unsafe people.”

“I won’t--”

“Take this time, Connor,” Elijah cut him off, “to find yourself again. To get back to the happy Connor that I first met, okay?”

Not only additional bars but another lock, as well. Connor was trapped.

“Yes, Elijah.”

* * *

Hank didn’t know how he had gotten back to the station. His feet had kept moving him forward on a familiar path but his mind was outside of town, in a modern mansion where he was sure Connor was still telling lies to save the both of them. And there was nothing Hank could do to help him. He felt like he was standing in the wings of a play, expected to go on at any minute, but he had no idea what the play was about, what lines the other players were saying, or what his own lines were supposed to be.

Hank knew that the best thing he could do for Connor was to hang back and allow him to finish the play on his own. No matter how much Hank wanted to charge in and pull him off the stage and into reality.

One of the receptionists greeted him as he passed them by but he paid it no mind. Only through sheer muscle memory did he scan his pass and go through into the interior parts of the DPD. 

“Hank!”

Somebody was shouting his name but he kept going, needing the anchor of his own chair at his own desk before he allowed his body to crumble. 

“Hank!”

Luckily, he had stopped hiding booze in his desk.

“Hank, are you listening to me?”

Ben was in front of him. 

“We got him, Hank.” Ben leaned over and pulled up some text on Hank’s computer screen. “IT went through everything you sent over, and we got Zlatko Andronikov! Him and his entire filthy Ichor business.” Ben scrolled through the field of text, highlighting points of interest as he kept talking about the dark web, and cached data, and digital search warrants. But all of it - everything the two of them had been working towards for months - it all seemed so unimportant to Hank right now.

Except for one thing.

“What about Kamski?” he interrupted Ben’s stream of information, “did we get anything on Kamski?”

Ben leaned back on his heels, his chest expanding with a huge inhale of breath. “No, there doesn’t seem to be anything. He might be on the list of clients but so are half of Detroit’s one-percenters. We just can’t find any viable link that connects Kamski to Ichor.” He placed a hand on Hank’s shoulder, “I’m sorry, I know you took a special interest in--”

Hank shrugged off the hand. “This isn’t fucking over, Ben.”

“Jesus, Hank, I’m telling you, there’s nothing there. You can’t keep going after the guy just because you don’t like the look of his face.”

Hank turned more fully towards his screen, getting ready to go through everything IT had sent over. 

“We haven’t found everything. I just know it.”

**Author's Note:**

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